First Life
by Ygrayne
Summary: The early days at Hadrian's Wall.
1. Dagonet

_**In this story, Dagonet and Bors (along with a new character, Bedwyr) have served for five years longer than the other knights; they are experienced veterans, the only survivors of an earlier Sarmatian force which has been all but destroyed by the Woads. **_

_**(You all know none of this belongs to me. Let's consider the disclaimer section completed.)**_

_**Chapter 1 – Dagonet.**_

_**452 A.D.; fifteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Kay.

Agravain.

He counts them off on his fingers.

Percival. Ywain. Pellinore. Uriens. Griflet. Lionel. Balan.

All gone.

Nine knights. _Nine knights gone!_

Once there had been so many. Living, thriving, under the command of Arthur Castus. And now so few are left. Bors and Dagonet and Bedwyr, the lone survivors of the great battle against the Woads. So many knights, far too young to die, lost in the great horrific uprising. No, not so much a rebellion as a massacre, the Woads killing, without mercy, these knights who had never had any choice in the matter, who had not even chosen to fight the Woads. Fully three-quarters of Arthur Castus's Sarmatian force have been lost. It is something that will be remembered for years to come.

The faces of his dead comrades haunt him as he dresses, pulling his ragged tunic over his head, wrapping himself in a cloak. It is time, now, to collect the replacements. For that is what the Sarmatian knights are, to the Romans. Slaves. Replaceable. Arthur Castus may weep for his lost knights; the remaining men may grieve for their brothers-in-arms. But to the Romans, it is a military disaster, nothing more. Knights can always be replaced. They go, now, to take the new recruits, to snatch young boys from their tribes so that the boys may grow and fight and die in their turn.

It is the way of the Romans. It is the way of the world.

Dagonet closes his eyes. He is only, perhaps, twenty or twenty-one – he cannot remember his exact age – but he feels so old, so old. A veteran, now, after five years of fighting. Vaguely he remembers that day, so many years ago, when the Romans came to collect their tax; to take him and his brothers, only boys still, to guard Hadrian's Wall. Now it is time for the second round of taxes to be taken. Taxes in young boys, who will fight and fall long before their time.

467 A.D. The magic year, in which all the knights of Hadrian's Wall, regardless of how long they have served, will be released. The year he has looked forward to since first he came here, and the year the new recruits, too, will learn to treasure as their only hope of freedom.

It's a very long time away.

The Roman centurions had been suspicious when Dagonet had requested to go along. 'How do we know you won't help them escape?' one of them had demanded.

But he had wanted to go. He _needed_ to go, needed to see the new boys who may be slain just as his comrades have been. Needed to watch over them from the very first moment, take care of them even from the beginning. Protect them. He and Bedwyr and Bors; the three older knights, who must now care for their young comrades-to-be. Arthur's force is by far the smallest among the Sarmatian cavalries, but yet also the strongest. Now that this force has been ruthlessly slaughtered, Dagonet must help to raise the next group of Arthur's knights. Help them into their first life as knights and warriors. Help them become strong and brave and skilled. Help them _survive_.

Now it is time. He moves, quietly, down the crude wooden steps, goes out to where the wagons and horses are waiting to take them to the ship. The centurion shakes his head when he sees him. 'I still don't understand why you want to come, boy. What's the use?'

Dagonet says nothing. The Romans will never understand his need to protect the new boys, to guard them against death as he failed to do with his old comrades.

He climbs into one of the wagons. There are many other groups of Romans across Britain, he is sure, getting ready to collect their tithes from the Sarmatians; for it is tax day all over Sarmatia. But only he himself, Dagonet is sure, is going forth with the Roman officers to meet the young Sarmatians. Bors and Bedwyr are angry and heartbroken at the tragedy which lost them their comrades. But Dagonet alone feels this overwhelming guilt, this need to make up for his last mistake.

He must be the boys' father, their big brother. He is only a few years older than the boys, probably, but he must take care of them all the same.

The Romans move off.

It is time.


	2. Lancelot

_**Chapter 2 – Lancelot.**_

_**452 A.D.; fifteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

The two Romans chuckled, pulling the Sarmatian boy towards the wagon. The boy reached out, longingly, for his horse, and one of the officers slapped his hand away.

'The horse belongs to us now, boy,' he snarled in his broken, heavily accented form of the Sarmatian dialect. He took the reins and led the horse away, and did not see the sudden flare of anger in the boy's eyes.

'He's a fine-looking lad,' the Roman called back to his comrade, relapsing comfortably into his native Latin. ''Twill make a good knight. What's his tribe?'

The other laughed in derision. 'Who knows? They all look the same to me.'

The boy looked up at that, his dark eyes narrowing coldly at the insult. 'Maybe you all look the same to me, too.'

The Romans started; they had not expected the boy to know Latin. But their surprise lasted only an instant. The first officer kicked him, hard, in the thigh; the second grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him angrily.

'How dare you talk back to your masters?' he hissed, and, swinging the boy bodily off the ground, flung him roughly into the wagon. Their brutal treatment was casual, almost automatic, the treatment all Sarmatian slaves received at the hands of Romans. Throwing all the slaves into the wagon like sacks of flour.

Lancelot landed in a heap, and felt the hard wooden boards of the wagon floor rough against his face. He picked himself up and looked around him, his seeming arrogance only a mask for his real discomfort. His father had told him he would become a great knight, one of the legendary heroes given the honour of reincarnating as fine horses. He _must_ become a great knight; he must behave with dignity, with confidence.

The wagon was filled with boys like himself, dressed in the many different fashions of their tribes – lonely, unsmiling. None of them bothered to glance his way. He surveyed them carefully. _These are my new comrades- in-arms._ Most of them were around his own age, fourteen summers or so; the eldest was a young man, seventeen or eighteen by the looks of him. He counted six – no, seven, there was one more sitting quietly in the shadows and watching him with eyes that were strangely calm.

Lancelot's gaze swept swiftly over them all. Why, he realised with a shock, one of them was little more than a child, eight years old at the most! The child was only a few years younger than himself, but far too young to be fighting and killing and risking his life. Quickly he turned away so that none should see the pity in his face. Knights must be confident and self-assured, they must have no room for kindness.

The one in the shadows came forward, and this was another shock. This one was a man, with the well-seasoned look of a veteran, past twenty summers at least. The man's body was long and well-muscled – _he must be very tall_, Lancelot thought – and there were battle scars on his face which gave him the look of a fearsome fighter. But his voice was surprisingly gentle and friendly as he spoke.

'I am Dagonet, lad,' he said, 'one of the knights of Hadrian's Wall. There are three of us left – you will meet the other two afterwards. What's your name?'

'Lancelot.'

'A fine name.' He gestured to the others. 'Here, let the boys introduce themselves to you.'

There was a short, sullen silence. The first two boys to break it spoke almost at the same time; they were the most amiable-looking of the six strangers, and one of them even flashed a quick smile which made Lancelot warm to him.

'Gawain.' 'Gareth.'

Lancelot smiled back, cautiously.

'I am Gaheris,' said the oldest boy, the eighteen-year-old. He was a lanky, rather awkward-looking teenager, his red hair tangled and uncombed. But already, as the eldest of the recruits, he had assumed the role of older brother; there was a commanding, slightly patronising air about him he gazed at the younger boys.

'Galahad,' the eight-year-old whispered.

'Lamorak.' The boy scowled furiously at Lancelot as he said his name, glaring at him with a hatred seemingly not for Lancelot alone, but for the cruel world which had torn him away from his tribe and flung him towards a future ending only in death.

Lancelot raised his eyebrows.

The last boy was different. He could not be much older than Lancelot, but already his eyes looked old, old and silent, older even than Dagonet's. He was dressed in the strange clothing of the easternmost tribe, his dark hair tied in short braids and half-covering his face, two short tattooed ink-black lines etched into the skin over each cheekbone. Dagonet pointed to him with a small, laconic gesture, seeming to say: _Oh, this one. We've given up on him already; you needn't try to make conversation with him._

'This,' said Dagonet, 'is Tristan.'

Tristan's head came up at the sound of his name. He looked at Dagonet, at Lancelot, with something which was neither sadness nor anger – a silent blankness which was somehow more disconcerting than outright hostility.

'You're the last,' said Dagonet. 'So you've met them all. Most likely we'll be going to the coast, now, to take the ship back to Britannia.'

_These_, thought Lancelot, _are the people I will be spending near a lifetime with._

_The gods help me._

_

* * *

_

It was raining; the torrents of water beat furiously against them. The wagons rattled onwards, the wheels splashing in the mud, and the ice-cold water came in through the uncovered sides. Gaheris cursed loudly and foully each time mud splashed up onto him. Lancelot, in a corner next to Dagonet, shivered and drew his cloak more tightly around him. It didn't help; his cloak was as wet as he was.

They were all miserable; cold and buffeted by the rain-lashed wind. None of them could escape from the merciless drenching of the rain. Their hair and clothing were soaked through; puddles formed on the wagon floor and dripped out between the boards, making tiny, dismal splashes in the mud. Lancelot, gritting his teeth against the cold and clenching his hands beneath his cloak, mentally cursed the Romans. Cursed them with all his heart, and with a rather colourful vocabulary worthy of rivalling Gaheris's.

At times like this his mother would brew something hot to drink. She would call his father to draw the curtain across the doorway of their hut, and throw more wood on the fire so that it crackled loudly, cheerfully, and drowned out the gloomy pounding of the rain. She would put the steaming mugs on the table for them to drink, and afterwards she would take the wash-bucket and go out into the rain and fill it, and heat it up and make them wash their hair…

_I am too old to cry for my mother like a baby_, he snapped at himself. And then thought that, drenched and shivering though they all were, they at least had the wagon-roof over their heads. In front of them the Romans rode unprotected save by their helmets; the rain would soak them even more thoroughly than it did Lancelot.

That cheered him up.

Galahad was curled up in one corner, hugging his knees, looking smaller and more vulnerable by the minute; his wet hair stuck to his face, still chubby with baby roundness. With every jolt of the wagon his shoulders shook, the sobs, dry and muffled, growing louder every time.

'Will somebody make him _shut up_?' barked Lamorak, his still-breaking voice bursting out of him in an angry explosion that made it crack and soar. Gareth reached out and, gently, prodded Galahad on the shoulder.

The sobs grew louder.

'If this is the kind of sissy pup we're going to be living with for fifteen years –' Gaheris growled.

Children have very little pride when they cry. Or else, once they start, they cannot stop weeping. The small body quivered violently, the desperately stifled wails bursting out of him as if he could not control them. Louder and louder, until Lancelot, irritated, said with a cold ruthlessness he had not known existed in him:

'Throw him out of the wagon. If those Roman bastards hear him they'll kill him anyway – we'll just speed up the process and get rid of him faster.'

Dagonet felt sick and tired and worried; these, then, were the boys who must fight in the harsh war-world of Roman Britannia. Nine of them, including himself and the other knights at the Wall. Just boys, all of them, and one of them a little child no older than one of Bors' bastards, who should never have been sent here. There had been twelve knights, he remembered, before the battle with the Woads. And before that, originally, twenty or twenty-five – still a tiny force compared to the other cavalries. But they had been good knights, strong knights, able to win battles against incredible odds. And now they were dead and replaced by untrained children.

He sighed and lifted Galahad up by the armpits, pulled him closer, pushed a firm finger against the trembling mouth. 'Hush.'

The weeping only increased in volume, rising to drown out even the rain.

'_Shut your trap!_' Lamorak shouted.

'He's only eight years old,' Gawain said. 'Let him be.'

Misery, shivering, listening to the violent sobs of a stupid little kid who is too young, much too young for war and killing. This is Lancelot's first taste of his new life, this life which will go on for fifteen long years, till he forgets what came before and knows only how to live like this. This, he thinks, will be his first life and his last, his _only_ life, until at last he falls in battle and meets grim death.

He groans.

A Roman officer Lancelot had not seen before, a centurion most likely, rode back to the wagon, his horse treading the mud with exhaustion-weighted hooves. 'Tell the boy to stop his noise; I don't want to stop to beat him in all this rain.'

Lancelot watched, trying not to feel pity but failing. This small child who most likely cannot even lift a sword, let alone defend himself in battle, sobbing and rocking back and forth and trying, oh, so hard, to stop crying but he cannot stop…

The centurion put his hand on Tristan's head. Stroked it, almost fondly, twining his fingers in the braided hair, not looking at Tristan. 'I'll count to twenty.' He spoke the Sarmatian language well, too well, his cold marble-like eyes watching all of them. 'If he hasn't stopped by then, I'll come back and, rain or no rain, I'll beat him till his arse bleeds.' He twisted the hair, twisted it with awful brutality till it seemed the braids might tear out by the roots. Tristan bared his teeth against what must have been horrible pain, but did not cry out.

The centurion yanked viciously, jerking Tristan's head back, so that for a moment Lancelot feared the other boy's neck might snap like a twig. And turned and rode away.

Lancelot could not see Tristan's face; he had turned his head, staring out of the wagon at the sodden fields, the silver lines of rain.

Galahad buried his small face in his hands. He must be brave, he must grow up and become a brave knight like in the stories, he cannot cry so hard – but it is so cold and he is too young for all this and he wants to go home, and his crying grows louder and louder…

Tristan hit him. It was a shockingly heavy blow, aimed with cruel precision at the delicate, childlike head. Galahad, knocked completely off balance, fell sideways and hit his head against the side of the wagon; if the wagon had been made of stone or metal he would have dashed his brains out. He lay still, the sobs terrified out of him, and at last there is no more weeping and all is quiet except for the rain.

Nobody said anything. The child got up, unsteadily, his ears ringing with the aftermath of the blow. Slowly, slowly, trembling with cold and with fear and the grief he no longer dared to express, he crawled to Gawain's feet. Nobody said anything when he rested his head, so small and child-formed, on the older boy's lap. Nobody said anything when Gawain lifted him up and held him, very gently, in his arms.

The wagon rattles. They spread their cloaks across the wagon sides and huddle close together, against the cold, silent and unsmiling, wrapping their arms around themselves.

This, then, is their new life.


	3. Arthur

_**Chapter 3 – Arthur.**_

_**452 A.D.; fifteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

'I tell you, they're too young. They'll get killed.'

'They'll be fine.' Dagonet sighed, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. 'I'm sure of it, Arthur.'

Arthur appealed to the Roman centurion who stood beside him. 'Couldn't you have brought back some older boys instead? Look at them – we'll be spending the first year or so feeding them and training them, and when they go into battle they'll _die_.' His voice cracked on the last word.

The centurion shrugged. 'That's no trouble of mine. You lost the first men yourself; you'll just have to train the new ones well enough. So that they don't get butchered like the last ones. Like –' Arthur flinched at the brutality of the words. '– pigs in a slaughterhouse.'

The Roman's eyes flashed cruelly.

Arthur stood, speechless, as the centurion turned and walked off. Smiling a little, grimly pleased with the effect of his words.

'They'll be fine,' Dagonet insisted. 'Don't listen to him. You know the Romans. They're all fools, complete lying idiots, these Romans…'

'My father was a Roman.'

Dagonet stopped. 'Oh.'

There was a short silence. Dagonet looks at him, this young boy-commander barely out of adolescence, yet already famous for his exploits. He has not smiled since the battle. The loss of his knights has broken him.

Bors and Bedwyr and Dagonet have told Arthur, again and again, that what happened was not his fault, that the Woads were too strong, that was all. But Arthur _knows _it was his fault. He was their commanding officer, he should have protected them.

Oh, but they had won. Arthur's mouth twisted, bitterly. His reputation for winning every battle had not been sullied. Yes, they had won. At a price.

He started to walk, slowly, around the courtyard where the knights were practising. If you could call them knights. Dagonet stayed beside him, keeping up easily, still talking. Still persisting.

'You shouldn't worry so much. I was afraid too, at first, about Galahad. I know you're worried about him. But the boy wants to learn, I've seen that. And he'll learn. In time.'

'_We have no time, Dagonet!_'

Dagonet stepped back, startled, as Arthur stopped and sharply turned on him. The words were a snarl, taut with nerves strained to the breaking point.

'Calm down,' Dagonet said hastily. 'I didn't mean –'

Arthur pointed, teeth bared in frustration, at one corner of the courtyard. 'He'll never manage! He tries, but it doesn't work, it never will! He's too young; it's no use. The Woads will gut him the moment he steps onto the battlefield!'

Dagonet watches the commander with a kind of sad empathy, knowing that Arthur is angry. Angry with the despairing sorrow-anger that only Arthur can display. Angry that this little boy – _eight years old_ – has been stupidly snatched from his tribe and forced onto the battlefield, where his life will be thrown away for nothing.

'He doesn't have a CHANCE –'

'Shut it,' said Dagonet, with uncharacteristic harshness. And then, more gently, 'You'll hurt his feelings if he hears you, and he can't do anything about it anyway.'

Arthur stopped. Sighed. Looked at Gawain, sparring, Galahad's head barely reaching to his chest. Galahad barely able to lift the heavy sword, desperately trying to fend off every blow, getting bruised and cut and knocked about, and finally throwing down the sword and dropping to the ground.

'I can't,' Galahad wailed. 'I _can't_!'

_Eight years old._

Arthur groaned, very softly.

He looked round at the others. Gaheris, the eldest one, against Tristan; they were good, he had to admit. So was Gareth, now sitting down for a rest, and applauding whenever one of them got in a good hit. A nice lad, that one – already he had started to befriend the others.

But friendliness isn't any help when you're trying to kill your enemies.

'The others, the first ones, they were young too,' said Dagonet quietly at his side. He bit his lip at the pain on Arthur's face and paused for a moment, then continued, determinedly. 'But they made it for five years, they were strong.'

Neither of them mentions that at the end of the five years came the Woads, and even the strongest of the knights had fallen. But both of them are thinking it.

_Morgan._

Morgan would have known what to do. She was wise, wiser than him, he who was only a boy trying to lead men against Woads bent on wiping them out entirely. Morgan, Morgan, he misses her.

He swallowed.

On the other side of the courtyard Bedwyr was sparring with Lamorak. Lamorak, his face perpetually twisted into a bitter scowl, coldly, silently hating this whole place. He saw Arthur watching him and glared at him, a look of pure loathing in his eyes.

There were always a few like this. There would be trouble. His heart sank.

And Lancelot.

The boy's footwork is natural, graceful; he wields two swords with amazing skill, blocking Bors' attacks and even making a few of his own, an astonishing feat against the heavyset veteran. With him it becomes a dance, almost as if it has been choreographed; lightly he steps and turns, making Bors feel his weight in the hot sun. Bors steps back, exhausted at last, and the boy turns, laughing, to Arthur.

'This one'll be a handful for the Woads,' Bors chuckles. There is something in his voice Arthur has not heard for a long time – can it, actually, be awe? 'I feel sorry for them, they won't know what's hit them.'

The boy Lancelot smiles at Arthur, and speaks. His voice is reassuring, almost like Dagonet's; he speaks not as a knight to his commanding officer, but as a friend to a friend. Arthur has forgotten what it feels like to be treated as a close friend, a brother, rather than the officer who is responsible for everyone.

'Don't worry, Arthur.' He is the only one of the newcomers who dares to call Arthur by his first name. 'We'll be fine, we really will.'

Arthur wonders, briefly, how Lancelot knows what he has been thinking.

'I'll fight you.' He surprises himself, surprises Dagonet and Bors. He pulls the sword from its sheath; it has been a long time since he has touched a weapon without guilt.

Lancelot moves with surprising swiftness, startling even Arthur, already a veteran. It is natural to him, inborn. Their swords clash and clash again, two against one, swing and block and arc, dart in at the opening – oh! blocked – blade, arc, slash, meet nothing but air as the boy ducks. Swiftly and more swiftly, the blades flashing, back and forth across the courtyard, step and turn and it is a dance and – ha, got one in, he stumbles! – and oh, he's up again, grip the hilt of his single sword against the boy's two, spin and come down on him from above, you've got the upper hand because you're taller…

The blades blur and glitter in the sunlight, faster, faster, dancing, and all around them the young knights are dancing in their own private matches, and Arthur has forgotten, even if only for a little while, the nine knights lost to the Woads. Dance and whirl the blade around and it is so comforting to be evenly matched for once. So soothing to be equal to someone else instead of higher, better. Arthur realises, only now when the pressure is off, how weary he is of being in command of everybody.

And the sword is at Lancelot's throat. Lancelot lowers his weapons, grinning, and involuntarily Arthur feels his own mouth move in an answering smile.

'You are _good_.' He cannot keep the admiration out of his voice; he is speaking to Lancelot as a friend, an equal, and it is such a relief and a pleasure to do it that he does not think he can ever stop. 'You are really good.'

Lancelot grins at Arthur, his eyes are very dark, and they are dancing, laughing, carelessly arrogant.

'I know.'_  
_


	4. Gawain

_**Just a short piece of drabble that popped into my head this morning. Don't worry, things will get much less boring in the next few chapters!**_

_**Um…**_

_**At least, that's what I hope.**_

_**Oh dear…**_

_**Chapter 4 – Gawain.**_

_**453 A.D.; fourteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Gawain woke suddenly, his eyes snapping open like windows whose shutters have, without warning, been jerked away. He lay still for a moment, wondering what sound had woken him – he did not usually wake in middle-night. He turned his head, letting his eyes wander over the wide chamber where the knights slept in their narrow cots. Bors was snoring loudly, as usual, but Gawain was used to it by now; surely he couldn't have woken because of _that_. Lamorak tossed and turned restlessly in his sleep, moaning a little, dreaming, perhaps, of home. Dreams were the only times when the boy showed any vulnerability; any emotion other than hatred. Galahad, too, wept secretly at night for his home, Gawain knew.

Galahad. Where was Galahad?

The younger boy's cot was empty.

Gawain swung his feet to the floor and snatched his tunic. The other knights, mostly, slept soundly in their wooden cots. Like butterflies neatly pinned to cards, lying tidily side by side. Only one of them had escaped.

Gawain hurried, a tight knot of anxiety in his chest, pulling on his boots and making for the door. Galahad could not have been gone long, and with those short legs he couldn't go far. But Gawain must move silently, swiftly, must not wake the other knights. If Arthur found out – or worse, the Romans – he did not want to know what would happen to Galahad.

On an impulse, Gawain turned at the door, went back and peered out of the window. Just to see if he could spot Galahad as he fled. His gaze drifted across the courtyard and came to rest on the small, shadow-dark figure in one corner. The moonlight glinting on the long big sword in his hand as he swung it, slashed it through the air, stabbed at one of the wooden targets.

Practising.

Galahad hadn't escaped after all.

But still –

Gawain glanced back at the others, making sure they were still sleeping. Slowly, slowly, he pushed open the door, stole quietly down the stairs and into the courtyard.

The boy turned.

'Gawain –?' he said uncertainly, the sword swinging in his weighed-down hand.

'You shouldn't be up so late.'

'The moon's still up,' Galahad retorted. Deliberately he turned away – blade, swing, arc. The target was a kind of wooden club, which swung back and forth and hit you in the face if you missed. Already Galahad's face was bruised and blackened from trying, but still he continued. The boy was, actually, surprisingly good for his age – there was a vast improvement since those first days.

'D'you do this every night?'

The younger boy did not answer; he was still patiently, doggedly slashing at the target. Squinting, trying to picture it as an enemy. But after a time he spoke.

'I'm going to be as good as you.' It was not an arrogant speech, merely a determined one. 'I'm going to be as good as everyone else. I _will_ be.'

He seemed to be speaking more to himself than Gawain. Abruptly Galahad turned. 'Will you fight me?'

It is not a surprising question – it is, indeed, natural for Galahad to want to practise with a live opponent. But Gawain finds himself feeling strangely reluctant.

'I haven't got my sword –'

'Well, go and get it.'

There is a hard determination on the boy's face as he scowls at Gawain. It is not the determination of a boy who feels he is inferior to his comrades – it is a cold, unwavering resolve to really learn how to fight. And Galahad does not treat it as a game, as so many of the other boys do. He knows quite well that he will have to fight and kill, sooner or later, and he is practising for that moment. Practising slaughter.

Gawain feels, suddenly, sickened. Galahad is so small, no older than Gawain's own little brother back home. Standing there with the great shining sword in his small, still-chubby hand, training to kill. Every stab, every slash he makes with the sword is an act of practice, getting ready to kill his first man in battle.

Galahad is too young for battle. They are _all_ too young.

But then, can you ever be old enough to slaughter enemies on a battlefield?

Gawain sighs. Shakes his head.

'I'm not fighting you,' he said. 'Go back to bed. You need your sleep.'

'Later,' Galahad insisted. 'Later.'

Gawain turned and went out of the courtyard. At the foot of the stairs he paused and looked back.

Galahad was still there, practising. Focussed.

Blade, swing, stab, arc.


	5. Bors

_**Chapter 5 – Bors.**_

_**453 A.D.; fourteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Bors swore between his teeth as he tried to maneuvre his horse through the undergrowth. Arthur was a bloody fool. So what if Dag had seen a couple of Woads in the forest? Just looking for something to eat, most likely. If Arthur was so worried about the sneaky little bastards, he should've sent Dag instead to scout them out. Since Dag was the genius who reported it to Arthur. Since he was the reason why Bors, dirty and irritated, was now going on a damned wild-goose chase in this stupid forest.

He just wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. Too much weight and muscle to be sneaking around, like one of those blue-painted savages. His horse wasn't much better either. He, Bors the Magnificent, was made to swing an axe around and chop people's heads off. Not this bloody scouting business. Leave that to Dag, who was much better at the quiet stuff anyway. But oh, no, Dag was tied up with that fool lad Lamorak, all cut up and bruised from that sparring match with Tristan.

Why'd the idiot boy gone and challenged Tristan anyway? Lamorak was good, true enough, but not _that_ good. He'd been here for 'most a year, now; he knew Tristan well enough, he should've had the sense to leave well alone. Did the lad want to get himself killed or something?

Maybe. You could never tell with Lamorak. The boy was an utter maniac. Well, actually that would be Tristan, according to Bedwyr. But Bors liked Tristan. He liked him better than Lamorak, anyway. 'Least Tristan didn't give you that creepy death-glare thingamajig and at least –

His head smashed into an overhead branch.

'_Shit!_'

Just what he needed. He wasn't _suited_ to this damned cow-dung sneaking around, that just proved it. Bors glanced around, rather uneasily, hand gripping the hilt of his battle-axe – those Woads had ears like bats'. He started violently, almost falling off his horse, when some sort of bird flew over him. And dropped a great splotch of dung on his head.

_That does it._

Bors, exasperated beyond all endurance, threw back his head and growled furiously. Damn Arthur and damn Woads and damn all the birds in the bloody world. He'd just bloody well get out of this stupid place and get the hell back to the Wall. Bors shook his axe, violently, and swung it at the nearest tree just to let off steam. The hell with Woads overhearing. He roared into the silent forest:

'THIS IS WHAT YE GET WHEN YE SEND ME SCOUTIN'!'

And then he saw them. Shadowy figures of Woads, moving just a short distance away among the trees. Running towards him.

Oops.

Bors grabbed the reins of his horse with one hand, seizing his axe in the other. Jerking the reins to turn the horse around, he held the axe aloft, alert and ready. The Woads outnumbered him. But he had a good solid axe and a horse, and they did not.

They rushed into the light, their blue-painted faces eerily dappled with shade, their dirty bare bodies glistening with sweat and other stuff he didn't like to think about. The long knives they carried glinted in the sunlight. Bors swung his axe, reining in the horse, loosening it so that it cavorted about and nearly knocked down one of them. The horse reared up and neighed in terror; his axe crashed into the head of one of the Woads, splitting the man's blue-stained skull in a great mess of blood and brains. Bors roared with the delight of killing, spinning his axe, killing one Woad who tried to drag him off his horse, another Woad by grabbing the filthy head and breaking the neck. He loved it. _This_ was his natural territory. Noisily, messily bringing death down on the Woads from above, killing them before they could kill him.

And then, quickly, it was over; his axe connected only with air. Bors swung his horse around. Yes, they were all dead. He roared again, this time with victory, smashing his fists against his gore-stained chest.

Arthur had been right; the Woads didn't usually come so near to the edge of the great forest, so near to the Wall itself. Bors did not begrudge Arthur the fact that, once again, he had been right and Bors had been wrong. Fighting put him in a good mood.

He kicked his heels in, and his horse broke into a trot, running through the forest, back towards the Wall. Woads. There'd be a battle soon, more fighting. Good. War and battle were even better than fighting small groups of Woads; there were more enemies to slaughter.

Bors turned in the saddle and made a very rude gesture in the direction of the Woads.

Pity there weren't any of them alive to see it.


	6. Gaheris

_**Chapter 6 – Gaheris.**_

_**453 A.D.; fourteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Gaheris flings up his sword arm, parrying the Woad's thrust with his blade, kicks the man in the stomach and brings the sword down on him. Whirls to meet the next one, slashing and stabbing, lightning-speed, it is second nature to him now, so fast, everything moves so fast. And all around him are the other knights, desperately battling, fending off this great attack from the forest.

They flood the Wall like ants swarming a nest; he cannot see the other knights for all the Woads surrounding him. And yet the Woads fall so easily, without armour, without proper swords. Gaheris has killed more than a dozen in the last few minutes.

It is not _right_. The poor devils are not even properly armed. It is butchery. Like the slaughter of animals.

But it is a battle, and he has no choice.

Again and again. Leaping, twisting through the great crowd of bodies, slashing with his long sword. They fall and fall, their bodies exposed to his blade-edge, yet they do not seem to be getting any lesser. He curses them for that, not so much because of their number but because with so many, he cannot see his comrades-in-arms. Does not know whether they are still alive.

Far away, the high neighing of a horse. And all around him the war-cries of the Woads as they attack the Wall again and again and again, a great tidal wave which is beaten back and yet always swells and crashes down. (Kick the bodies away from you as they fall.) And even then Gaheris knows that the Woads are undefeatable. There will never be a final decisive battle, for they will always attack again. Although they are always massacred when they come out of hiding, they _always_ come back for a second try.

One can almost admire their determination.

It is all a swift-moving nightmare, his mind strangely detached as he performs this mindless slaughter. Sometimes he thinks this land rightly belongs to the Woads – they cannot help trying again and again to take it back. They are victims. As are the Sarmatians, slaves of the Romans, carelessly sent off to kill these inconvenient blueskinned savages and die in slavery. Victims pitted against victims. (Kill two more Woads.)

Do all knights think thoughts like these in battle? Conscience-stricken, guilty thoughts, thoughts that will doubtless be considered crazy and heretic by the Romans?

Probably not.

Kill and kill again. The will to live is stronger than his conscience. He must end this battle as quickly as possible and search for his comrades, search for Gareth. Gareth is his closest friend, though Gareth is a friend to everybody. See the red-soaked sword come out through the other side of the Woad's body. Yet another Woad, this one's a big one, and –

Gaheris screams as the man parries his sword-thrust with a huge hand, wrestles the shield away from him and twists Gaheris's left arm. Kicking him and keeping the grip on Gaheris's arm and twisting, agonisingly, till it seems the bones may break. Gaheris is screaming and screaming and he does not care about whether this is right or wrong any more. He wants to live, to hell with conscience, and somehow Gaheris wriggles away, his shield arm burning with pain, and kills the Woad. Whirls and kills another.

Now his mind is fixed on just living through this battle _before_ he starts to debate over this bloody guilt business. Slash and stab, and his shield is gone and his left arm hurts _so much_, the pain running from his wrist to his elbow and somehow paralysing his whole left side. Without his shield he is weakened, the pain is blazing hellfire, and then three Woads are on him at once and Gaheris is screaming again and now he will die –

Arrows suddenly overhead, and the long feathered shafts embed themselves in the Woads' chests, and Gaheris turns, panting, blood-soaked. Tristan atop his horse, bow in hand, riding over the battlefield. Sharply, abruptly, he reins in his horse and glances swiftly over Gaheris, checking to see if he is all right.

Gaheris gasps for breath, his left arm hanging limply by his side. At the sight of one of his comrades he feels suddenly so much stronger. He is going to live through this. He _is_ – he _will_.

'You didn't need to do that, Tris,' Gaheris protests. 'I'm the oldest, I can manage by myself –'

Tristan does not answer. His next arrow gets a Woad woman directly in the eye.

And Tristan gallops off into the midst of the Woads, and Gaheris grips his sword a little tighter and battles the Woads with single-minded purpose. He does not see them as enemies any longer, merely as obstacles to survival – he will not let them kill him, he will live, he will, he _will_! He slashes them away, like flies, batting them out of existence with a single stroke of the sword. Gareth, where is Gareth? And Gaheris's arm hurts so much and he needs to get away from all this, rest, tend his injured arm and try to gather his thoughts. Needs to keep himself strong so that he can live through this, his first, real battle.

He fights himself to the very edge of the forest and flings himself down against a tree. Facing away from the furious fighting behind him, staring into the forest. Panting, gripping his sword, and hoping with all his heart that there are no Woads waiting to ambush him in the forest.

His arm. He has lost his shield arm. Gaheris groans and clutches it, the pain shooting up to his shoulder with little flaming darts of agony. Is this what all his battles will be like?

'They know we've lost most of our knights.'

Gaheris starts violently, turns towards the source of the voice, sword upraised.

Bedwyr is sitting – no, half-lying – next to another tree. Gaheris sees that Bedwyr is clutching at his leg, twisted at a painfully awkward angle and streaming blood. Filthy and perspiring like himself, seizing whatever short respite he can get.

'They know we're too few, now.'

Typical Bedwyr, stating the obvious.

Bedwyr's eyes are closed, caked nearly shut with blood and grime; he speaks through clenched teeth. Talking, talking unceasingly, to take his mind off the pain of his leg. 'They know you new boys are too inexperienced. They've been waiting for a long time, Gaheris, getting ready, gathering their numbers.'

Gaheris leans his head against the tree trunk.

Bedwyr's eyes fly open – they are startlingly blue against the dirt of his face. 'What's wrong with you?' he demands. And he is the old, ordinary Bedwyr again, blunt and rather tactless, though his teeth are gritted against the agonising pain.

'My arm.' Gaheris's voice is hoarse and strained. Suddenly he thinks how funny this is, sitting and talking in the forest with people dying all around them. 'My shield arm.'

'Your shield arm.' Bedwyr lets out his breath, slowly. 'That's bad, boy. With a shield you can protect yourself, even bash in other people's heads. The shield arm's the most important, actually – without it you're likely to get killed.'

_Thank you, Bedwyr, for making this situation seem so much better._

Gaheris groans. 'Have you seen Gareth?'

A silent shake of the head. Bedwyr is exhausted from the pain.

Gaheris gets slowly to his feet. He must go back.

'You stay here,' he snaps at Bedwyr. 'You can't do any good with that leg.'

A nod. Bedwyr's eyes are shut again; a small, strangled moan escapes from between his teeth.

Can't do anything about it now.

Gaheris sets his teeth. He rushes out into the midst of the battle, protecting his injured arm with his sword. Somewhere in the mêlée he sees Lancelot, half-dancing with his two swords, and Arthur at his side. Lamorak, fighting desperately – he's too far away, no time to help him – the Woads are falling, falling, he can see his comrades and he can see _Gareth_. And so now Gaheris is calm and unafraid; he leaps on the Woads trying to drag Tristan off his horse, wrestles them to the ground and kills them. He swings around, sword upraised, tense and ready. Behind him Tristan says:

'You didn't need to do that. I can manage by myself.'

Gaheris grins.

All of a sudden Gaheris spots Galahad, standing over the corpse of a dead Woad, the sword swinging heavily in his hand. Simply standing, stunned, perfectly still in the midst of his enemies, lost to the battle-world around him. A Woad comes up behind him, knife in hand. But Galahad is staring down at the dead man at his feet, his eyes wide in shock and terror, and the Woad raises his knife…

'Galahad!' Gaheris yells.

But the boy does not move. Out of nowhere Gawain leaps forward, pushing Galahad aside, and kills the Woad and Gaheris is killing as well, slashing, stabbing. And then he is up against an enormous, fearsome warrior wielding a great battle-axe. Gaheris fights, frantically dodging the huge axe – how has a Woad gotten hold of an axe like that? – and somehow manages to stab the Woad in the stomach. The man crashes down directly on top of Gaheris's sprained arm, and Gaheris shrieks in agony. The Woad is dead now, Gaheris half-crushed beneath him, he cannot roll away, and his arm is pure agony and there is a horrible pain as the blunt axe-handle hits him in the back of the head…

Then, mercifully, blackness.

* * *

'Gaheris.'

A flicker. Just a small, subdued flash, of colour. Hidden just below his lashes.

'_Gaheris_.'

Gaheris opened his eyes.

It hurt to lift his eyelids, for all the throbbing in his head and arm. Involuntarily he let out a moan, muffled by the heavy body on top of him. His body was nearly numb from lying so long under the corpse. He looked upwards, dazed, at the dizzily spinning features which swirled and turned themselves inside out and then resolved themselves into Bedwyr's face.

'Bedwyr,' he said.

Bedwyr, kneeling over him, his leg dragging limply along the ground. Perspiration mixed with blood glistening on his forehead. For an instant Gaheris saw a flicker of something – could it actually be concern? – in the older knight's eyes. Then it was gone.

'So you're alive after all,' said Bedwyr. 'Well – that's a pity.'

Gaheris groaned, straining to pull himself out from under the heavy Woad. His head hurt like hell. Suddenly he was aware of how he must look, blood and grime caking his face, his armour smeared with gore.

'You look terrible,' said Bedwyr.

Bedwyr, stating the obvious. Again.

'Yeah, whatever.' Gaheris pulls himself up and rests his aching head on his knees. There is a sudden spasm in his left arm as Bedwyr puts his hand on it. Examining it, lifting it; Gaheris grits his teeth against the sharp twinge of pain.

'You'll have to see Dagonet about that later,' he says.

'And your leg?'

'Yes, I know. Shut it.'

The battlefield is covered with the corpses of Woads. Literally covered, the bodies nearly piling one on top of the other. Gaheris does not know whether he should be repulsed by the carnage or happy that they are victorious.

'We won,' he says, trying not to look at the horribly slaughtered bodies strewn on the ground.

'Ah, he guesses it at last. You genius.'

_Typical_ Bedwyr.

Bedwyr stands up unsteadily, trying to lean all his weight on the uninjured leg. 'Those savages should know by now it's no use.' There is contempt in his voice as he gazes down at the dead Woads. 'I don't know why they keep trying.'

Because Britannia is theirs by right? Because the Roman invaders have driven them into the forest where they suffer, half-starving? Because Gaheris is revolted by this massacre, this bloodbath, and not so sure whether victory is worth it after all?

But you just don't say things like that to an older knight.

Especially when he still has a sword in his hand.

The other knights are alive, too, picking their way over the piles of corpses towards each other. Embracing, shaking hands in relief. Or simply standing there and laughing at Bors' after-battle antics.

Bedwyr turns to go to the other knights. Rather timidly, Gaheris looks up at Bedwyr as he sits there, hugging his knees, surrounded by bodies.

'Bedwyr,' he says slowly, uncertainly, 'thank you.'

The other knight looks at him quizzically. 'For what?'

_For just being a knight_, Gaheris wants to say. _For being so incredibly annoying, and yet so likeable. For surviving my first real battle along with everybody else._

But instead he only shrugs. 'I don't know.' He finds himself, absurdly, grinning like a fool. 'I don't know.'

'You're an idiot.'

_Oh, Bedwyr, Bedwyr. You amaze me._

Gaheris watches quietly, from where he sits. He makes no move to join the other knights, not even Gareth. He simply watches.

It's funny how many different ways there are of fighting, how many perspectives on battle itself. To Lancelot – and perhaps Arthur – it is a dance, a pretty graceful game. And then there is Bors, this noisy giant who is strangely boisterous in his bloodthirstiness. And Tristan – his lips curve in a smile – with whom it is simple butchery; enemies stand no chance against him.

But with the rest of them it is simply surviving, killing or being killed.

Across the field Bors thumps his chest jubilantly, raising his fists in a display of gleeful strength, amidst the laughter of the other knights. Madly he roars his triumph to the open sky, and for once, Gaheris actually considers joining in.


	7. Galahad

_**Chapter 7 – Galahad.**_

_**453 A.D.; fourteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

'What were you _thinking_?' Gawain thundered. 'You fool! Always stay on your guard during a battle, _do you hear me_? If I hadn't been there to save you…Don't you ever stop like that again! Ever! DO YOU HEAR ME, GALAHAD?'

Galahad nods. Standing there with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back, nodding, nodding.

Gawain sighs. He looks round at the other knights, lazily sprawled in different positions in the meeting hall, watching (with feigned disinterest) this clash between Gawain and the kid he has taken under his wing. Probably enjoying the drama.

Gawain does not like yelling at Galahad. Especially when it amuses the other knights. He pauses for a moment, then speaks again, allowing a softer note to creep into his voice.

'But you did well for your first battle, lad.' He sounds like Dagonet. 'You're what – nine? Ten? You did very well.' He smiles at the boy.

Bors, always kind-hearted (though rather unintelligent), chips in, in an attempt to wipe the sadness off Galahad's face. ''Tis a damned good knight ye'll turn out to be, boy. When ye're old enough I'll teach you how to handle an axe! Then you can kill more o' them blue savages, and faster –' Bors makes a great swinging, smashing motion, holding an imaginary axe. Slaughtering imaginary Woads. The other knights chuckle at the ridiculous sight.

_How can they laugh about something like this?_

The impulse is abrupt and involuntary. He needs to get away. Galahad turns and runs, his bare feet pounding against the cold stone floor as if running away from a hungry wolf. He cannot bear it any longer. Runs up the stairs and into the chamber where they sleep, ignoring the surprise of the knights in the meeting hall, ignoring Gawain's startled call.

Galahad flings himself down on his cot. He sees the face of the dead Woad so clearly in his mind, that blue-painted body lying lifeless at his feet. The man was starving, merely skin and bones twisted with scrawny muscle. He was a _person_. And now he is dead, by Galahad's hand.

He has killed a man, and he is nine years old.

The low ceiling and walls seem to press down upon him. The feeling is claustrophobic; Galahad will be crushed, crushed under this life of killing and the guilt of what he has done. The Woad will never live again. The dead eyes will never blink again. The mouth will never move in a smile. He clutches desperately at the sheets, gasping for breath, suffocating.

_Home._ At home Galahad would not have been forced to do this horrible thing.

At that he howls, the tears bursting suddenly from his still-childlike eyes, raising his dirt-streaked face to the cold unsympathetic ceiling. He is still filthy from battle, the too-big armour loose on his small body, drenched in blood. Someone's blood. Bits and pieces of people clinging to his body, someone's brains, someone's skin, someone's intestine…

He is a murderer. He shrieks aloud.

Most children his age are playing in the sunshine, running carefree, perhaps getting scolded by their mothers. But not Galahad.

He has forgotten what it is like to act his age. He is so tired of being an adult, of being a warrior and a knight. He thought he was ready to kill in battle, but he wasn't. He never will be.

'I am _nine years old_!' Galahad screams, his voice tear-choked, to the empty, pitiless room. But they don't care how old you are here. _He _doesn't care; he isn't even sure if that is his age, by all the gods. He doesn't care how old he is any more, he just wants to stop having to do these appalling things, he just wants to go home.

Galahad covers his face with his hands. Blood-stained hands. Blood on his face and in his hair and on his legs and torso. Blood all over him. He moans and jerks his feet up on the cot, hugging his knees tightly, rocking back and forth, back and forth...

There is a step in the doorway. They have come to catch him. They have come to take him away and punish him for what he has done.

No. They don't care if you kill people here. They are all here to kill people too.

Galahad looks up. His face is smeared with blood and dirt and tears; he is a mess, both outside and inside him. Tristan is standing at the door.

Tristan is the only one who has not laughed at Bors' clowning. He is the only one who always sits quietly in a corner, not joining in the crude, brutal jests, the rowdy banter.

He is also the only one who has come to check on Galahad.

Gawain has not come; he must think him mad, then, for running away to weep. Gawain does not understand. Nobody understands what it is like to see always, in your mind, the faces of the men you have killed. Again Galahad buries his face in his hands, tasting blood and salt tears on his lips. Rocking back and forth.

'I don't want to do this any more!' he screams. Not at Tristan, not at anybody, only at himself. 'I'm only _nine_ –' He wraps his arms over his head, curling into a ball, rocking back and forth. Back and forth. The words come out as a strangled wail. 'I want to go home…'

After a time, the tears streaming down his face and leaving clean streaks on the dirty skin, Galahad becomes aware that Tristan is sitting, very quietly, on the cot next to him. Not saying anything, simply watching him with his silent unreadable eyes. Galahad does not look at him – he is crying too hard to raise his head. But he is sure that behind the impassive mask he always wears, Tristan is looking at him with contempt, thinking, _Crybaby._

No, surely Tristan is not like that. Surely Tristan understands what it feels like. But he is crying so hard, he hates himself, he hates everybody, and the words burst out before he can stop himself:

'I hate you! I hate this place! I hate living like this and I hate fighting and I hate you _fucking_ people who think I'm a fool for crying –' Galahad gasps for breath, crying so hard the air can barely fill his tortured lungs. He cries out again, '_I want to go home_…'

The words dissolve into weeping. He wails, forlorn and alone, at the oppressive silence of the room around him and at last he cannot weep any more, his eyes are dry and tearless, and at last the room is completely, utterly silent. And there is only the solid knot of grief tight in his chest, choking him so that he cannot speak.

'Are you done?' said Tristan.

There is no scorn in Tristan's voice, none visible on his face when Galahad raises his head, very slowly, to look at him. The sentence – made up of just three short little words – is delivered in the flat, toneless voice Tristan always uses, still faintly touched with the lilting accent of the eastern tribes. And yet in some way it belittles Galahad. Transforms all his desperate misery into the whine of a fretful child, complete with I-want-to-go-home refrain.

But he cannot express all this in words; and he does not trust himself to speak just yet. And so, humiliated, miserable, Galahad can only nod.

There is a short pause.

'You're a mess,' Tristan said shortly. 'I'm going to clean you up.'

Galahad wraps his arms around his knees, letting his head droop to his chest, exhausted. He hears the sound of water being poured into a basin, the soft weight of Tristan sitting down again on the cot. The cloth is dipped into the water and wrung out, the strained-out water making a soft tinkling sound as it falls back into the basin, and Galahad lifts his head obediently so that Tristan can clean his face with the damp cloth. He is too tired to speak or think. He sits there, like a good little boy, and gets himself cleaned up and lets Tristan take off his armour and his tunic and wash the sweat and blood from his filthy body.

It is a pity you can't simply wash off memories in that way.

The tunic is flung into the laundry basket and the armour put aside, to be scrubbed clean later. Galahad shivers at the thought of what he must do afterwards – working with a scrubbing-brush to clean bits of dead people from his chain mail.

Tristan dries him off with a towel and takes a fresh tunic from the drawer – how the hell does he know where Galahad keeps his things? – and Galahad lifts his arms so that Tristan can slip the tunic over his head. Tristan's hands have held a bow and wielded a sword, have killed a man, many men. But now they are oddly gentle. So is his voice as he gets up, empties the basin and demands in his curt fashion:

'Water? Wine? Something to eat?'

Galahad shakes his head, still sitting curled up on the cot and resting his head on his knees.

Tristan turns to go. He makes no sound when he moves, as always, but Galahad can feel Tristan's presence moving away, leaving him suddenly cold and alone.

'You'll stay with me?'

Galahad is surprised at his own words. And surprised, even more so, when Tristan actually turns around and comes back and sits down beside him.

Galahad is clean now, cool and freshly washed. But he will never be clean inside again. And he is so tired. So very tired. Slowly he drags himself closer to Tristan, as a child snuggles up to its father or elder brother. Once Tristan had hit him – hit him so hard that it seemed his very brain had been smashed to bits. It seems a very long time ago, now.

Tired, so tired that his eyelids are already beginning to droop, he slides timidly under Tristan's arm. Tristan does not pull away. Rests his head, wearily, on Tristan's shoulder.

It is nice to be a child again, even for a little while.


	8. Gareth

_**Gareth and Lancelot, I'm sorry if I neglected you. Take me back! There's a modified quote from **_**Friends **_**in here, see if you can spot it. (By the way, I'm not going to include Tristan's hawk in this multichaptered story – to my great regret – for the very simple reason that I don't think most hawks have a lifespan of fifteen years.)**_

_**Chapter 8 – Gareth.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

'A round table?' said Lancelot, puzzled. 'But why?'

Arthur gestured happily to the table, like a child showing off a new toy. 'I had it specially made. No one can sit at the head of a round table. So this table shows that we all sit side by side, that we're all equal.'

'Um, Arthur?' said Gawain uncertainly.

'Yes?'

'Why would we _want _to be equal?'

Arthur opened his mouth, found nothing to say, and shut it again. The knights stood in a baffled half-circle around the table, quiet and confused.

Arthur sighed. 'Just sit down. No! Wait! I'm going to arrange your seats.'

There was a murmur of uneasy dissent.

'Why can't we just get a normal table?' Bedwyr complained.

'Because,' Arthur snapped, 'I bought this table and I paid a lot of money for it and I'm not going to take it back! Now _sit down_!'

They sat down.

'No, no, no! Stand up again. I'm going to arrange your seats, didn't I tell you?'

Again the soft, perplexed murmur as the knights awkwardly rose to their feet. Dagonet and Bedwyr, the two more intelligent knights among the three veterans, exchanged glances. Their eyes seemed to read the other's thoughts and respond accordingly.

Bedwyr: _What the hell's up with Arthur and this table thing?_

Dagonet: _Now, Bedwyr, you have to be very patient with commanding officers. They're not always completely right in the head. If necessary use brute force to keep them under control…_

Gareth saw the exchange and grinned. It was always good to have a little entertainment to spice up the dreary everyday life at Hadrian's Wall. Entertainment at Arthur's expense, of course.

'All right.' Arthur ran a hand worriedly through his hair. Already he could feel the beginnings of a very bad headache starting to throb at his temples. 'Tristan, you'll sit down first. Lancelot, you sit next to Tristan.'

'_What?_' said Lancelot.

Tristan looked up sharply, caught Arthur's eye and meaningfully touched the knife hidden in his sleeve. Arthur gulped. But he was their commander, and it was too late to turn back now.

'I repeat – Lancelot, next to Tristan. Now.'

At once there was a deafening clamour of protest, and not just from Lancelot. Arthur covered his ears against the onslaught of objections from the knights.

'I don't know about you, Arthur,' Gaheris snarled. 'But I am not going to listen to those two quarrelling every single day, and what's more, I'm not going to help bury the body when one of them gets killed!'

Dagonet glanced at Arthur, saw the pained look on his face and drew himself up to his full height, slamming his chair loudly against the floor to get everyone's attention. The knights fell silent. Dagonet smiled briefly, admiring the effect he had created.

'That,' said Arthur, 'was a very expensive chair.'

'You're welcome.'

_Breathe in, breathe out, and slowly count to ten. _Arthur drummed his fingers nervously on the polished surface of the table. 'Listen, I know you two don't like each other. But you're going to be together for a long, long time – not in _that _way, Gawain, you filthy-minded bastard! – and you'll have to work it out sometime, so why not start now?'

Tristan touched his knife. Again.

Bors took pity on his commanding officer. 'See here,' he said unexpectedly, 'it's real simple. Ye listen to Arthur and sit there like good lads. It won't be that bad once ye get to know each other. And if Lancelot gets killed in the process, so much the better, we'll get rid of him!'

Tristan's eyes brightened a little. Lancelot, speechless, fumed in outraged silence.

'Just do it,' Galahad kindly chipped in. 'It's a good match, actually. We can't make one of you talk, and we can't get the other one to shut up. See? You balance each other out perfectly!'

Lancelot began to bang his head against the table.

'Lancelot!' Arthur yelled, pushing the boy away and anxiously checking the table for any dent marks. 'Just sit next to Tristan! I'm your commanding officer, I rank higher than you so you'd better obey me!'

'But Arthur,' Gareth interjected, 'I thought you said we were all equal…'

Arthur groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

'I am not sitting next to Tristan!' Lancelot protested. 'Tristan creeps me out! He talks too little!'

'Yes, Lance, you've told me that a hundred times. Get used to it. Tristan, does Lancelot creep _you _out?'

'Yes. He talks too much.'

At this Lamorak actually smiled, an incredibly rare occurrence. Unfortunately no one was there to see it.

Arthur, exasperated, tapped his foot against the floor. 'Let's put it this way, Lance. You can sit with Tristan or you can sit with Lamorak. Pick one.'

'Oh, gods,' exclaimed Lancelot. 'Tristan. Tristan over Lamorak any day.'

Lamorak stopped smiling. Gareth patted his shoulder sympathetically, and Lamorak jerked away with a furious scowl.

Lancelot dropped into his seat with the air of a weary and defeated warrior. Tristan, quite markedly, picked up his own chair and moved it as far away from Lancelot as possible before he sat down.

'Gawain on Lancelot's other side,' Arthur ordered. 'Then Gareth.'

That, at least, was fine with them. The boys moved forward together and took their places. Lancelot, relieved, turned to Gawain with a grin. 'Seems like Arthur put those with the nicest hair together, eh?'

'_You _have nice hair? You look like a poodle.'

'I do not! What about you? It's all long and tangled. Don't you ever comb it?'

'At least I don't put it in curlers every night like you do!'

Lancelot gasped. 'How did – how did you know?'

Gawain smirked. Hastily Gareth threw himself between them. 'Stop it, both of you! Don't push Arthur too near the edge.'

'The edge?' hissed Lancelot. 'What edge? Arthur left the edge behind a long time ago! He's so far past the edge, the edge is like a _dot _to him now!'

'Just shut up and stop quarrelling! I don't think any of you are considering what Arthur feels like, but I am! And I won't have you annoying him till he snaps and really, _really _loses it. I won't have it, I tell you!'

There was a short, subdued pause.

'Gareth, you are adorable when you're angry.'

'Shut it,' said Gareth.

Arthur began to rub his temples. To think he'd ever thought _Tristan _would give trouble. 'Now Lamorak, and next to him Bors,' he said, his voice shaking with the tension of his nerves.

'Arthur, are you crazy?' Bedwyr demanded. 'Bors is so big! The slightest thing and he'll get mad and kill Lamorak off in no time. I mean, look at them! Lamorak is so small compared to Bors!'

'Maybe that's the whole idea,' offered Gaheris. 'Bors' body will deflect the death-glares from Lamorak.'

'Gaheris, that's just not funny…'

'Shut up! Shut up! _Shut up!_' Arthur roared, pushed beyond his limits. He could keep his cool in situations of mortal danger, yet somehow a small group of knights was forcing him very near a nervous breakdown. 'Lamorak and Bors, just sit down, the two of you! And Bedwyr, you can go next to Bors since you're so worried.'

'What? No!' Dagonet protested. '_I've _got to sit next to Bors. I'm the only one who can control him, and I've got to be around to make sure he doesn't do something stupid. Well, something unusually stupid.'

'I AM NOT STUPID!' Bors shouted, reaching for his axe. Lamorak groaned and clutched his ears.

'I didn't say you were! I just said you did stupid things!'

'What's the difference?'

'All right, _that _proves you're stupid –'

'I feel like a baby-sitter,' moaned Arthur piteously. 'I give in. I give in. Dagonet next to Bors, and then Bedwyr. Happy now?'

'Not particularly,' Dagonet responded, unsuccessfully trying to pacify Bors. Arthur ignored them. His head had begun to whirl quite dizzyingly.

'Then Gaheris. And then Galahad,' he gasped.

'Arthur,' Galahad whimpered, 'I don't want to be the last one in the line!'

'There is no line!' snapped Gawain. 'We're sitting at a round table, get it?'

'Arthur, I want to sit next to Gawain instead!'

'What's wrong with my company?' Gaheris growled. '– No, don't answer that. I don't want to know.'

'Are you sure you want to break up me and Gawain, Galahad?' Lancelot called out, adding to the intolerable clamour. 'He won't be happy that you're intruding, I warn you!'

'What are you saying, Lance?' demanded Gawain indignantly. 'I'd give anything to change places, you egoistic little –'

'Arthur,' Galahad cried, 'put me with Gawain and move us away from Lancelot!'

'You're just jealous I'm not sitting next to you,' said Lancelot desperately, clinging to Gawain's sleeve. 'Gawain, stay with me, don't leave me all alone with Lamorak and Tris!'

(Here Tristan, who had been sitting silently with his hands in his lap, jumped up and slammed Lancelot's head viciously down onto the table.)

'_TRISTAN!_' thundered Arthur. '_No violence at this table, do you understand? _ONE MORE violent move from you and, I swear, I'll slice your guts out and roast you alive over an open fire!'

The knights stared at Arthur. Arthur glared, seemingly oblivious to the utter hypocrisy of his last statement.

'Arthur,' Galahad pleaded, 'put me with Gawain. Just do it.'

'No, don't! Arthur, as your first and best friend among all these knights, I'm begging you right now, don't leave me alone with – Tristan, put down that knife!'

Arthur's despairing shriek echoed eerily all around the walls of the meeting hall. The knights froze, horrified, as he flung himself down on a chair and buried his head in his arms, his shoulders shaking. Even Bors stopped throttling Dagonet (and Bedwyr, in turn, stopped throttling Bors) long enough to stare down at their commanding officer in dismay.

Gareth, concerned, crept forward and bent over Arthur's trembling form, the other knights following cautiously at his heels. When Gareth leaned down he could hear Arthur muttering, 'Why? _Why?_ What have I ever done to deserve this?'

'Maybe you did something wrong in a past life?' Gareth suggested helpfully.

'_It's rhetorical!_' The anguished wail sent Gareth tumbling backwards in his scramble for cover.

Bors nudged Lamorak and whispered, 'What's 'rhetorical'?'

Lamorak shrugged.

After a short time Arthur raised his head, surreptitiously wiping tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. 'I'm sorry. I just – lost it for a moment.'

'I warned you,' Gareth hissed at Lancelot. Lancelot gazed innocently back at him.

'So,' began Galahad, 'as I was saying –'

'Sit down!'

The knights rushed back to their seats, stifling their complaints in the overwhelming fear that they might set off another bout of weeping. In retrospect Gareth would have found this funny, but not right now.

Arthur stood up, took a deep breath, rearranged his hair, checked the table for scratch marks (finding many more than he'd expected) and spoke.

'We're all done?' he asked. 'Everybody seated for now? Good. I'll sit down then.'

Arthur flung himself into a chair next to Galahad, exhausted, and rested his head on his arms. The circle, as he thought smugly, was at last complete.

The knights looked at each other, wondering uneasily whether they should tell him the painful truth or wait for him to find it out himself. Finally Gawain decided to risk it.

'Um, Arthur?' he said nervously. 'This table is round.'

'Gawain, I know that! What d'you take me for?'

Gawain cleared his throat, swallowed hard and delivered the blow in one swift (but in no way merciful) stroke.

'So, technically speaking, you're sitting next to Tristan right now.'

Arthur shot up like a startled deer. Gareth covered his face with his hands.

_Here we go again…_


	9. Morgan

_**According to Wikipedia, the Latin translation of Thomas Malory's 'Ygrayne' ('Igraine') is 'Igerna', the name which would probably have been used in Romanised Britain. Hence the usage of this form instead of 'Igraine' or 'Ygrayne'. **_

_**WARNING: This chapter contains quite obvious implications of incest.**_

_**Chapter 9 – Morgan.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

She rode out of the forest on a very cold morning. Bors found her and escorted her to the Wall, and in that short hour's ride he carried away more tales of her than he might have done in three weeks with another woman.

''Tis Arthur's sister,' he told the other knights in the tavern afterwards. His voice was hushed, as if he spoke of a goddess. 'Morgan o' the druids they call her, or Morgan o' the fairies. One of the witch-priestesses of the Tor. Magic spells they know, such as no Christian man should see. Not that I'm one of those men,' he finished with a chuckle, and drained his mug.

'I can't believe she rode through all that forest to get here, and didn't get attacked!' Gareth sounded awed.

'If she's as beautiful as Bors claims…' Gawain sniggered.

'It is not just Bors,' Gaheris said, wiping beer from his still newly-grown beard. 'I have heard other tales of her, and all say that she is beautiful beyond compare. And that her sister Morgause, too, is a fine-looking woman.'

Lamorak looked up at Morgause's name, and there was a flash of something in his eyes that Gaheris could not fathom. But then the familiar scowl came back on his face, and he stared down into his mug.

'A druid priestess, of the same blood as our Arthur?' Lancelot snorted. 'Impossible. I can't believe she hasn't caved in and let herself get baptised. She must be a strange woman.'

'She is.'

* * *

Bedwyr met Arthur in the hall. 'She's waiting for you upstairs, Arthur. In your chamber. Seems to know her way around this place already.'

Arthur laughed shortly. 'Clearly you have not met a druid before. They seem to know _everything_ within a matter of time.'

There was bitterness in his voice, and Bedwyr looked at him searchingly. But Arthur turned away and began to climb the stairs to his chamber.

'What did she say she'd come for?'

'To see you, Arthur. Some kind of message.'

Arthur does not answer. He ascends the stairs, his feet leaden, his heart pounding in his chest. Hesitatingly he raises his hand to the doorknob. Then, gritting his teeth, he opens the door and walks in.

She is standing there waiting for him, her long priestess's robes flowing about her slender body, her dark hair loose on her shoulders. He has forgotten how beautiful she is. She is facing away from the door, looking out of the window; but with that uncanny druid-way of hers she hears him, although he has moved as silently as a cat. She turns, slowly, tantalisingly, and looks at him.

'Arthur.' Her eyes glow, caressing him with a love that makes him vaguely uncomfortable. And then, as if she cannot help herself, she runs forward, flings her arms around him and kisses him on the mouth.

'Morgan. Sister.' He pulls away from her. 'We spoke of this before…'

'Do not call me sister!' she hisses, her face burning with a dark something which frightens him. 'I am more than that. You know I am.'

He feels the familiar look of cold indifference creeping over his face, freezing his features and killing the smile he so badly wants to give her. He knows his rejection must hurt her even more than it hurts him. But he must hurt her. Must defend himself so that she will not see how he trembles in her presence.

'It was a sin, what we did,' he says evenly. 'A sin, and I wish it had never happened. I am sorry if it made you unhappy.' He turns to go.

'_You cannot hide from it forever, Arthur!_'

He flinches at the anger in her voice. She comes swiftly on those beautiful graceful feet and jerks him round to face her, and he realises for the first time how strong she is. 'Once you loved me,' she hisses, teeth bared. 'Dare you reject me now? _Now_?'

He draws back in fear, then anger gives him the strength he always lacks when she speaks to him. She is a sorceress, tutored by the druids of the Tor – is she working her magic on him even now? He pulls away again, not so much in movements but in mind, and walks to the door.

'_Stay!_' she shrieks, and there is a desperation in her voice that almost forces him to turn back. But he cannot stop now.

She sinks, slowly, weakly, to her knees, losing all the strength she has forced herself to display. She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly vulnerable. Tentatively her hands touch her belly.

She whispers the words she has never allowed herself to say before, admits at last what she has never dared to confess, even to herself:

'I am carrying your child.'

She lifts her head. He is gone; the silence seems to echo around her, the emptiness of the room reflecting her voice, her presence, like a mirror of sound.

She leans her head against the wall. She has never felt so alone in her life.

* * *

'Is this not unsuitable for you, lady Morgan?' Gareth said anxiously, gesturing to the whole room. Gareth, the caring one, the friendly one. Once Arthur would have loved him for his thoughtfulness, but now Gareth's attentions to Morgan grated on his nerves. They were _all _dancing attendance on her, asking questions, striking up a conversation. But he supposed he could not blame them. Other than the tavern girls, most of the knights had not seen a woman in a very long time, and especially not a high-born one.

Arthur sighed almost inaudibly, and drank deeply from his goblet of wine. Lancelot shot him a concerned glance, noticing his unusual quietness. But even Lancelot was too preoccupied with Morgan to do anything about it.

'What do you mean, Gareth?' Morgan's eyes sparkled as she looked at them, gentle yet alluring, the eyes both of a maternal druid-sorceress and of a woman who knows that she is beautiful. The knights were all watching her, fascinated. Arthur could not look. He stared down into his lap.

Gareth gestured again. 'All this. Coarse bread and meat, and being surrounded by men –'

'That last is no hardship for me, I can assure you.'

Laughter.

How did she do it? How could she talk so lightly, casually, when he could not so much as look at her? Arthur glanced up and met her gaze, his own tormented, and saw an answering flicker of sudden pain in her eyes.

He did not know whether to be pleased or guilty. He looked down.

'So what brings you here, lady Morgan? Dare I hope it was for a sight of – handsome lads such as our Lancelot?' The knights sniggered at the sardonic note in Gawain's voice.

'Pay no attention to Gawain,' Lancelot snapped. 'He's jealous.' He smiled at Morgan as they sat around the round table, a single silk-gowned lady among a group of knights. Arthur saw a spark in Morgan's dark eyes, saw her tilt her head, her dark lovely smile widening. Flirting with Lancelot.

_Bitch._

'I came to bring a message to my brother Arthur,' she said. A sweet still voice like dark water, like a moss-green stream running down into shadowed depths. There was a faint sarcastic twist of her mouth at the word 'brother' – or had he only imagined it? 'And the gods are good, for not only did I come safely to Hadrian's Wall, but I was welcomed by a charming knight.'

'Charming? _Bors_?'

Morgan laughed. 'Even so. And perhaps, if all goes as planned, I will stay here for a little while. There is something I must do.'

Arthur looked up sharply, clutching tightly at the goblet lest he drop it. Morgan. Morgan, staying here. How was it that none of the knights noticed his shock?

'But you can't stay at the Wall,' Dagonet protested. 'It's too dangerous.'

'The Woads will not harm me, surely you must know that by now –'

'You must not stay here!' Arthur did not know he had spoken till he saw the surprise on the knights' faces. Morgan looked at him levelly, challenging him.

'Why not, Arthur Castus?' she asked. Daring him to speak the words.

_Because I do not want you here!_ Arthur wanted to shout. _Because you will destroy me and because I do not know how long I can hide this from my knights! I do not know how I can live when you are here!_

But he could not say it. 'Nothing,' he muttered.

Morgan raised her goblet to her lips and drank. _I must be going mad_, she thought. But no. She had been mad for a very long time now, perhaps. And she would stay here. She knew it quite well – Arthur would let her stay. Morgan had had a hold over him all their lives and it was no trouble to use it this time. If he wanted it kept a secret, he need not be afraid; she had held their secret for many years now and none knew but Bedwyr. Bedwyr was watching her now, over the rim of his beer-mug, with a kind of sadness in his face.

Oh yes. Bedwyr knew quite well. Morgan raised her eyebrows at him, challengingly, and he looked away and took a swallow of his beer.

'You are Arthur's elder sister, not his younger?' Galahad asked. 'Is it true, then, that you half-raised him in the house of the lady Igerna while Uther fought in the wars?'

'It is true.' Her voice was suddenly quiet. 'Do you remember, Arthur? I suppose you do not – you were only a babe at the time, a few months old perhaps. Uther was away and so was our sister Morgause and our mother had gone to Tintagel, I think. There was only I and the nurses, and one day you fell and hurt yourself. You cried and cried, so I picked you up and kissed you and rocked you till you slept. You clung to me.' Her eyes rested on him.

And at last he looked up. There was no anger in Morgan's face now, only the familiar soft caressing look. Did the other knights not sense the tension that seemed to fill the room? How was it that they only saw the love of an elder sister? To him it was so plain, so frighteningly obvious.

Morgan raised her goblet again. 'A toast,' she called out across the great space between them, across the worlds-wide barrier which was so hard to break down. 'To my good brother, and to your noble commander, dear knights! A toast to Arthur Castus!'

The mugs and goblets clinked against each other, the hearty cheering broke out all around the table. And over the huge gulf, over the round table with its smooth polished surface, Arthur and Morgan's eyes met.

* * *

'You came to bring me a message. So give it to me, Morgan, and go.'

Morgan turned from the window. Her face was perfectly blank, calm and impassive, and this frightened him for some reason. 'It seems Bedwyr misunderstood my meaning,' she said quietly. 'I came not only to bring a message but to make a request. I am with child, and I would stay with you at the Wall till it is born.'

'With child?' Arthur stared at her, tracing with his eyes the flat belly which seemed incapable of holding any life within it. 'Whose?'

'You know whose.'

He went to her side and stood, not looking at her, staring blankly out of the window. 'But you can't bear a child here, among knights. It would not be seemly.' His voice sounded hoarse and strained even to his ears. 'And we don't know anything about childbirth –'

'I will get a midwife from Vanora's tavern.'

'But why?' he demanded. 'Why did you come here? Why do you want to give birth _here_, of all places?'

Morgan closed her eyes and sighed wearily. 'Because,' she said patiently, as if speaking to a slow-witted child, 'you fathered the child and I would have you look upon his face as he is born.'

Arthur flung himself across the room and sat down heavily on the bed. She did not turn to look at him; he saw that she was gripping the window-ledge, her nails digging into the cement, her knuckles whitening with the tenseness of her shoulders and arms.

'Why do you care?' he shouted, recklessly, pushed beyond all limits. 'Why do you keep coming to me? You can raise the babe by yourself among the druids, you don't need me, you –'

She turned and looked at him, and he fell silent.

'I know you don't care,' she said harshly, her face cold and blank like a carven stone. 'I ask you only to look at the boy. After that you can go about your own life, but just _once_, only look upon the face of your child. It is the most I can ask of you. You don't want him anyway. If I die in birth you will not raise the child, you'll just send him off to Morgause for fostering.' Her voice was even, but the bitterness in the words struck him like a slap in the face.

'I didn't mean –'

'Yes, you did. I know you and I know you did.'

Arthur stood up and began to pace the room. 'But to bear it alone, unmarried – there will be talk. People will want to know who fathered it.'

Morgan raised her head proudly. 'I am of the druids. I may do as I please. And do not keep referring to the babe as 'it'. He is a person, he's a soul. It will be a son; I can feel it.'

'He, then. What will you tell the child? He will want to know who his father is. You must not let him know he was begotten in such shame –'

'You think it shame?' she asked in a low voice. Her face had gone very white.

Arthur swung round to face her, his voice a snarl through clenched teeth. 'Do you deny it? It is shameful evil! The babe is born of a woman on her own brother, it is wicked, it must be kept secret –' He felt himself trembling with the tension of his nerves, gone icy cold all over, staring into the pale angry face of his sister.

'How can you say such things?' she cried.

'Don't you see?' he shouted. 'It is a terrible thing, we should have known this would happen! The babe will be fatherless, sin-born –'

'YOU FATHERED THIS CHILD!' she screamed.

Her voice seemed to echo around the room. Arthur shrank away, suddenly small and helpless.

'You fathered this child,' Morgan repeated, lowering her voice, though not softening the anger in it. 'Like it or not, it is the truth. You left me; do not leave your child. He deserves more than I can give him. Do not let him grow up fatherless and alone, or, may the gods help me, you will answer to _me_ – little brother.' The last words, bitterly spoken, twisted her mouth in a smile that was no smile.

For a moment he met and held her icy gaze. Then his eyes dropped, and he muttered, almost under his breath:

'You should have killed the babe while you had the chance.'

It was the worst possible thing he could have said at that moment.

She slapped him at those words, with a strength in her arm he had never known existed. He had thought her angry before, but now she was truly terrifying. Her eyes, wide with fury, were liquid fire in her burning face, her whole body trembling with a rage no man can ever understand – the rage of a mother who, along with her child, has been hurt beyond repair.

For now Morgan understood. She and her child were his guilty secret, one he could never tell to anyone, not even his closest friend. Arthur was protecting himself. Putting his flawless reputation before the welfare of his former lover, the welfare of his unwanted child.

'I am _ashamed_ of you!' she screamed. 'You are no true brother and no true lover and you are no true father to _our child_!'

And she turns and runs, runs out into the corridor and down the stairs and into the cold, cold outside air. Runs from him, so that he will not see that she is weeping.


	10. Wise

_**Admiral von Cha-Cha: Ah, yes, about the miles thing. I'm pretty sure it was a typo, thanks for pointing that out! It's been corrected now.**_

_**Chapter 10 – Wise.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

The woman made her way slowly up the winding stairs. She was very tired; her belly, swollen with pregnancy, strained tautly against the silk bodice of her gown. The wind whipped her skirts around her ankles, blue-dyed silk swirling and billowing around her swollen body, the sharp cold air stinging her eyes. Climb higher and higher, clinging to the crude wooden railing.

As she reached the top of the stairs the woman dropped to her hands and knees, exhausted. The rough-hewn stone was cold against her cold body. All around her stretched the wide plains, the Forest Perilous a great dark streak on one side. Woads. Danger.

The Woads would not harm _her_.

It was not the first time she had climbed to the very top of the Wall. She had been here for several months, now, and often she had sought refuge in the wind-blown loneliness. She rose slowly, pressing one hand to her pregnant belly, walked along the great expanse of stone wall. Her hair slipped from its tight braiding and wafted against her cheekbones; her feet made no noise on the stone blocks. The Wall was long, running for miles and miles along the green wilderness of Britannia. The Wall was the world.

Dagonet sat on the Wall itself, his legs hanging down over hewn stone, over emptiness. One slip and he would fall several metres to his death. The wind was ice-cold and the air torturously thin, but he seemed not to notice; he was used to it. Tirelessly he scanned the green plains for Woads, his broadsword and a crossbow lying across his lap, whittling something out of wood. Tristan sat at his side. They were quiet and lonely in the lonely silence of this place, far distanced from the other knights who sat drinking and laughing in the tavern.

Tristan heard her first. She dropped down beside him, gathering her skirts around her thighs, seating herself on the cold stone blocks.

'Do my brothers weary you, lady Morgan?' Dagonet did not look up from the bit of wood in his hands, but his voice was courteous, gentle. 'If you like I'll speak to them about it.'

Morgan grimaced. 'It is nothing.' Oh, no. Nothing. To endure the bawdy jokes and laughter, the long-running commentary on the size of her belly, the endless teasing to get her to reveal who was the father of her child. And all through this Arthur would say nothing. Would not even look at her.

'They wanted me to read their future, as a seeress.' She laughed, soft and slightly scornful. 'All these months both of you have never done so. It was wise. Only fools long to see their fate.'

'There're many kinds of wisdom,' Dagonet said sharply. 'I dare say you do not know all of them.'

Morgan laughed again, as a fighter acknowledging a hit. 'Defend your comrades if you will. Tell me, is it such a great thing for an unmarried woman to bear a child?'

Dagonet shrugged, chipping intently at the wood. 'It is different for you. You're a high-born lady.'

Morgan let out her breath. It swirled around her nose and mouth in a puff of frost, and then disappeared. Over Dagonet's shoulder she and Tristan exchanged glances. In so many months the two of them had barely spoken, yet they knew each other better than anyone else.

'If your brothers knew who my child's father was, they might be shocked.' The words slipped out before she thought, bitter and sharp like a passing breath of ice. She had not meant to speak them. But Dagonet, fortunately, only said:

'The same goes for the children of many women, I think. Married and unmarried.'

Morgan permitted herself a wry smile. 'The boy Lamorak, does he come here often?'

Dagonet sighed and shaved away another curl of wood. 'Sometimes. When he thinks he is alone.'

Tristan was eating an apple, staring out across the plains, carving out slices one by one with his knife. The knife was bloodstained; Morgan wondered if he knew.

'My sister Morgause –' Morgan started, then abruptly fell silent.

'She's too old,' said Tristan.

He cut another slice and bit into it.

'But she is a young woman by other standards,' Morgan said, 'not yet thirty.'

'Lamorak is sixteen.'

'I know of girls who were married to men more than twenty years older.' A sharper note had crept into her voice. 'So let it be the other way around. For once.'

'What?' said Dagonet, puzzled. 'What are you talking about?'

Morgan said nothing. She and Tristan looked at each other once again, exchanging thoughts.

Morgan stood up, slowly and awkwardly. Wrapping her arms around her heavy belly. 'I must go back.'

She felt weary and old. Once the cold isolation of the Wall-top might have helped her, but not any more. She needed to leave this place utterly. Return to the Tor and the druids of the Tor, return to the magic of her ancient gods. The silent open plains and the dark-shadowed forests and the high hills, the loveliness of silence.

But Arthur was here, and Morgan knew she would not leave.

She leaned down, her loosened hair rippling around her neck. 'What are you making?'

Dagonet scraped at the wood. 'Toothpick.'

Morgan laughed.

She drew up her skirts, her feet quick and silent on the stones, circled down the wooden steps. Back to Arthur, back to people.

The Wall stretched over the hills and plains, coiling like a stone-built serpent. And at the very top they sat, two tiny figures against the grey stone, the Forest Perilous grim beneath them. Below were the sheltered chambers and the taverns, the people and the homely chatter and laughter. But out on top there was no noise. No warmth. No time.

Dagonet carved a rough wedge from the chunk of wood. Tristan ate another slice. They were silent.

They were wise.


	11. Lamorak

_**Chapter 11 – Lamorak.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Today Morgause would have turned twenty-nine. She would have put on her best gown, the crimson silk one with the seed-pearl trim, and she would have hung a gold chain at her throat and gold bracelets on her wrists and braided her hair with crimson ribbons. And all day she would have hung around her husband, hoping that he would notice and ask her what the occasion was. Every year Morgause had tried futilely, hoping against hope. But King Lot never noticed. And so, with a gesture of disgust, she would have turned away again.

At least Lamorak noticed.

They had counted the days together, counting from the first night of the full moon, and on the day after the third moon-night he would bring her something nice. A seashell, perhaps, or a flowering twig or a sprig of forest-herb. And he would say, 'How old are you this year?' And she would have answered, but they both knew the question was unnecessary because he kept count. Lamorak had been the only one besides her who kept count. The only one who cared.

The door to Morgan's chamber was oak-wood hinged with iron, crudely made like everything in here. The sharp rust-and-peeling-wood bitterness of its smell rushed up his nostrils as he knelt; the rude, heavy lock pressed against his nose. The keyhole was small, but it gave him a good view of the room.

Morgan was combing her hair.

_He is fifteen. He drops down on the grass beside her and asks,'How old are you this year?'_

_She takes the herbs from him. They smell nice; later she will pin them to the breast of her gown and wear them the whole day. 'Twenty-eight.'_

'_Um,' he says. 'Well then. Happy birthday.'_

Morgan was wearing her priestess's robes – dark swaths of shadow-dyed linen pinned at the neck with a clasp of gold, loose and ungirdled to hide her swollen belly. Her bare arms and shoulders were white against the dark colours of the cloth. In one hand she held a mirror, a flat circle of polished bronze; with the other she pulled a comb through her loosened hair. The long tunic-robes billowed around her and pooled at her feet. She looked so very like Morgause.

Lamorak would have liked to remember Morgause this way, combing her beautiful long hair in her room. Not the mental image burned into his brain of Morgause's own sons threatening her, trying to make her reveal the name of her lover, and rushing in with their swords when she refused. Not the grimly satisfied face of Morgause's eldest son as he held up her severed head.

The cool darkness of her hair drifted to Morgan's waist. Her back was to him; he saw her set down the comb and begin to braid her hair, parting it into several narrow braids and binding the ends with thread. Sometimes Lamorak thought he might've liked talking to her. She would have understood if he had told her. No, probably she understood anyway. Druids know everything.

But you can't tell anyone. Nobody talks to you. You are the outcast, the freak. Speak to no one and no one will speak to you. Speak to no one, and they will leave you alone in peace and silence. Silence is better than a beating.

'_Sixteen.' She counts the years off on her fingers. 'I had just been married to King Lot when you were born. Sixteen years. Sixteen years of marriage.' Her voice twists like a knife._

_He lets out his breath, slowly. She will not let him touch her most of the time; sixteen years with King Lot have made her near-terrified of a man's touch. But he shifts closer to her._

'_That first night, our wedding night, do you know what he did? He made me open my legs so he could check I was a maiden. He said he wanted to make sure he was getting what he paid for.' Her jaw is clenched; her voice hisses out from between her teeth. 'I could have stood it. But he barely talks to me. Not even at nights. Some days he doesn't even _look_ at me.' Her dark eyes flare with resentment. ' – Lamorak, let's run away!'_

'_What?'_

'_I can get money and food. We'll take the horses, flee over the mountains. We can go to your Sarmatia…Lamorak, I swear, if I have to spend one more day in this place I'll kill somebody –'_

'_You're crazy. It will never work.'_

'_I know I am crazy.' Savagely she bares her teeth. 'I've been crazy for the last sixteen years.'_

Morgan turned, wrapping the end of her last braid. Lamorak ducked quickly away from the keyhole, but he had a sense she knew he was there. That she had known all along. It was like a warm shadow, fleeting unnoticed across the cold, lonely emptiness which was his heart. It hurt to look at Morgan's face.

'_How old are you this year…'_

Lamorak half-wriggled down the corridor on all fours, keeping out of the line of sight of the keyhole, then scrambled to his feet and ran the rest of the way. Run, run. He was good at running. The horse was ready, waiting for him in the stables, saddled and laden with packs. When he had crouched fascinated at the keyhole, time had seemed to drag on forever; now he wanted to hurry, to get away.

He slipped into the chamber where they slept, seized his armour and pulled it on, hiding it under a long tunic. Morgan's eyes, dark fire beneath their silk lashes; Morgause's hand lifting a crust of bread to her warm-lipped mouth. His sword hung at his side, darkly comforting in the sharpness of its blade. Exactly how sharp it was, Morgause's sons would soon find out.

Lamorak's lips twisted.

And then Sarmatia. Moving swiftly, thinking of the graceful line of Morgause's cheekbone, her quick bittersweet smile. He slipped down the rough staircase, winding around and around, the sword cold and polished beneath his tunic. Sarmatia, land of the long rolling hills and the wild plains. Sarmatia, haven of refuge.

At the foot of the staircase he met Gareth and Bors, heading for the sleep-chamber. Lamorak pushed past them, his hand clutching at the tunic folds just over his sword-hilt. Suppose the armour showed through the cloth – !

'Lamorak?' Gareth, curse him, his fool-voice sharp with concern. 'Lamorak, are you all right?'

Lamorak turned his eyes on Gareth, flaming with sullen dislike. In them was the bitterness of secret years, of hidden death-grief slowly turning to hatred. Gareth stepped back.

As he hurried on Lamorak heard Bors mutter, 'The boy is crazy…'

_I know I am crazy. I've been crazy for the last sixteen years._

Lamorak smiled. It was not a nice smile.

And now his steps were crisp and swift, purposeful, and he walked with his face set and his hand ready to snatch at the sword at any moment. He felt hard and frozen in his loneliness. Soon. Soon he would be out of this accursed hated place. Just go, go to the stables and get the horse and don't think about Morgan or Morgause or the way her hair ripples in the sunlight…

He smashed into Lancelot as the other boy came round the corner.

'Watch it!' Lancelot snapped. 'What's with you today?'

Lamorak started to run.

He didn't think about hiding. He didn't think about secrecy or caution or the rising suspicion of the other knights. He ran, wildly dashing across the stone courtyard towards the stables, half-pulling his sword from its sheath. Run – he thought again with a twisted smile, _I am good at running _– if you make it to the stables, run, _run_, make it to the stables and you are free! His feet pounded on the stone blocks and he heard the shouts of the knights behind him and the sounds of pursuit, don't think about Morgause, just get out of here, RUN!

'Arthur!' Lancelot yelled. 'Arthur, Lamorak's –'

If you make it to the stables –!

Racing feet. 'Don't! Come back –' Gawain.

Make it – to the…

Gaheris, running on his long legs. '_Lamorak!_ Stop!'

Run. The stables are so close. And in that moment he knew that he would do anything just to escape this place, he would kill even his fellow-knights, and he yanked the sword out and they were shouting and running…

Arthur flung himself into Lamorak's path, gesturing frantically, hands out to show that he would not harm the boy. 'Lamorak, stop –'

Lamorak leaped on him, sword drawn. Arthur, startled, acting on instinct, seized his own sword and the blade flashed in the sunlight, and at the same time there was the sharp _twang_ of a bowstring as an arrow hissed through the air –

Silence.

Frozen silence.

Arthur stepped back. There was shock on his face as he looked down at the hand holding the sword, as if unable to believe that it was his. The blade had gone into Lamorak's belly and up between the ribs; it made a sickening sound as it slid out of Lamorak's body, dripping with his blood. The boy swayed, his own sword dropping from his hand, slowly, sickeningly slow, then toppled forward to the ground with his belly slashed open and Tristan's arrow in his back.

Tristan was standing at the top of the staircase, his bow still taut and ready at arm's-length. He had not tried to stop – to save – Lamorak, as the other knights had done. He had simply assessed the situation at a glance, picked up his bow and shot Lamorak through the back.

A crimson pool was slowly spreading around Lamorak's body.

Arthur flung down his sword. It clattered against the stone tiles, spattering blood everywhere.

'He had it comin',' Bors said harshly. Bors had always disliked Lamorak, Arthur remembered. 'Don't get too racked up.'

'I did not want to have to kill him,' Arthur whispered.

'How do you know it was you?' said Tristan from the stairs.

His voice was quiet and toneless as always. He turned and put his bow over his shoulder and went inside.

Arthur stared up at Tristan's retreating figure for a moment, his eyes wide and uncertain. Then he reached down and turned up the edge of Lamorak's tunic, to show the armour hidden underneath.

'He would have tried to run off sooner or later,' Bedwyr said quietly.

Morgan came into the courtyard as the knights were gathered around the body. Eyes very dark in her pale face. She made her way to the very centre of the group – they parted for her – and stood looking down at Lamorak, her hand on Arthur's shoulder. She showed none of the shock that was on the knights' faces, and Arthur remembered that she was a seeress.

'You knew this would happen,' he said accusingly.

Morgan did not answer. Her eyes were veiled, the curve of her smooth neck slightly sinuous.

'Why didn't you tell me?' Arthur shouted.

Morgan looked at him levelly, calm and unflinching. Unexpectedly Dagonet remembered her words: _Only fools long to see their fate. _

'He would have been killed anyway.'

She dropped to her knees beside the body, her skirts fanning out around her, and in a single swift movement pulled out the arrow. Still her soft supple body, held in its graceful curve, betrayed little emotion. She lifted the body with surprising strength and turned it over, and, carefully keeping her skirts away from the staining blood, closed the dead boy's eyes.


	12. After

_**WARNING: Incestuous relationship in this one. Actually this warning applies to all later chapters, since practically every chapter in which Morgan appears contains not-very-subtle hints of incest.**_

_**Chapter 12 – After.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Arthur_:_

_She told me of a fairy barge, forged out of orichalcum by Lenus, the god of healing, and shrouded in the mists which follow the fairy people wherever they go. And in the dark of the moon when the antlered god Cernunnos hunts the souls of the newly dead, and the washer-woman bathes the bodies of the doomed at the magic stream, so too would come the barge to bear the noble away in honour. And when I died, she said, they would lay me in the barge and the fairy queens would guide the barge through the mists to Insula Avallonis, the magical hidden isle, and give me to the nine sisters for healing._

'_And I shall be one of the nine,' she added, and smoothed my hair. 'I will be with you always.'_

'_You might be dead too by then.'_

_She smiled; I could see the glint of her teeth in the moonlight. 'It does not matter if I am dead. I will come back.' _

_She is not called Morgan of the fairies for nothing. When we were children together in Uther's house she always knew somehow when I could not sleep. And then she would come in and slip under the covers and put her arms around me, and I would know that everything was going to be all right._

_The wool blanket was rough against my face. The combined heat of our bodies flared out beneath the warm covers, like flame roses, very hot and fiery and pulsing._

'_He was very young.' It was not until Morgan looked sharply at me that I realised I had spoken the words aloud._

_We do not speak his name. You do not speak the names of those who are dead. Even then it hurt, to talk of people in the past tense._

'_You're not so much older than him yourself,' she commented dryly. _

'_I am old enough to kill one of my own knights –'_

_And she said what Tristan had said earlier: 'How do you know it was you?'_

_She was right. It might have been me, or it might have been Tristan. Sometimes uncertainty is far worse than really knowing._

_Morgan moved closer, pulling the blanket over us both. The moonlight gleamed on her hair. 'It's a long time since we did this last.'_

'_Very long. And with many others in between.'_

_Again her teeth glinted whitely. 'You have had your women. And I – I bore a son to your knight Uriens, many years ago.'_

'_Ywain?'_

'_Yes, Ywain.'_

_I sighed and shifted deeper under the covers. 'It does not matter. The Woads killed them both.'_

_She was very still and quiet next to me._

'_Uriens was from Wales,' I said after a short time. 'He would have been king.'_

'_Kings die as easily as common men, I think,' answered Morgan contemptuously. She pulled me closer. 'You are tired out. Sleep. It will be better afterwards.'_

_In all my life I have never seen Morgan asleep; she always woke earlier than me. Even when we lay together she would wait for me to fall asleep, making sure I would not have nightmares, and only then would she let herself rest._

_When I woke later that night she too was awake, looking back at me. The moon was hidden, her eyes gleaming in the darkness. I think she was holding my hand. I cannot remember now._

_I said, 'Did they take Lamorak to Avalon in the barge?'_

_And she said, 'Sleep.'

* * *

_

Morgan:

_Commonfolk tell many foolish tales about the druids and their magic. Some of them have a kernel of truth; others are merely fancy. Like the tales of scrying mirrors and such. Utter nonsense. Do not believe them. Seering is a thing of the mind, not of magic pools and chanted spells. Seering is to look into the past and the future both, reaching out into the fates, spreading your thoughts like water-weeds in a pond. Seering is to see with your eyes closed. And sometimes you cannot tell whether a fate-sight is a true prophecy, or only your imagination. That is why seering is so difficult._

_Magic changes you. It stretches you, drags you to new limits. I am Morgan no longer. I am the Lady of Avalon, chief of the nine priestess-sisters. I am the wind in the forest, the fire flickering beneath the trees as the Woads dance in their secret rites. I am the Morrígan, soaring on black wings above the battlefield. Spirals of fate and death and I know nothing and I know everything, and all that matters is power. We druids are all the same. Our power defines us, our roles shape us. Take our magic away, and we are nothing._

_It's a hard thing to be a sorceress._

_With Arthur I am neither priestess nor fairy, only Morgan. That is why it is so comforting. _

_Arthur fears ignorance. Knowing the truth satisfies some deep-rooted anxiety inside him. He wants to know what the Woads are doing now, when the next battle will occur, which of his knights will die next. He wants to know who killed Lamorak._

_Sometimes I think that if he truly knew all these things, it would do him no good but only harm. To see the future is no gift; I speak as one who has known the fates all my life. Knowledge is a curse._

_The knights sleep restless this night, thinking on the death of their comrade. No – he was not a friend to any of them, but he was one of the knights nevertheless. They will wonder whose was the hand that killed Lamorak, the sword or the arrow, Arthur or Tristan. It is good for them that they do not know. But Tristan knows and I know, and we will never speak the truth of it to anyone._

_Never._

_Not to anyone. _


	13. Birth

_**Chapter 13 – Birth.**_

_**454 A.D.; thirteen years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

The agonised screams drifted down to the meeting hall, piercing the easy, comradely atmosphere and turning it into uneasiness. Most of the knights had never seen a woman birthing; although they continued with their usual activities, every now and then they would glance up, nervously. There was an air of anxious listening, a strained alertness, and each time she shrieked in pain they involuntarily flinched.

Morgan screamed again.

'Do you think –' Galahad started apprehensively.

'Hush, Galahad.' Gaheris cut him off, pushing the chessboard towards him across the round table. But he too sounded worried. 'Your move.'

The screaming stopped – Morgan had regained control of herself, was trying to muffle her shrieks for the sake of the knights below. Now they heard the uneven, hurried gasps of someone in horrible pain but trying to stifle it. Quick panicked tortured breaths, finally giving way to the long moan that meant she had surrendered to the pain once more.

_The woman's hair is matted, sticking to her face with sweat and the tears streaming from her eyes. Tears of pain that she cannot blink back, tears flowing from her black-flame eyes like fire bringing forth water. She flings back her head, her face and body contorted with agony, and screams. A scream that seems ripped from the very essence of her being, a scream that makes the hair rise on the midwives' necks._

_They are making her kneel on the thick-spread straw now, so that the babe may slip out more easily. But she cannot kneel upright and half-lies in their supporting arms, her naked body streaked with blood and sweat. There is blood everywhere. Blood on the straw, blood on the midwives, blood on the woman's discarded gown – they have stripped off her crimson-drenched clothing and flung it aside. Sticky red blood streaming down her legs. So much blood, when a child should be coming out instead after all this time. Something is wrong, she thinks, terrified and in agony. She has seen many births herself, and she knows that something is terribly wrong with this one._

_She screams again._

Arthur paced the length of the meeting hall, back and forth, back and forth. The knights watched him tensely, able only to imagine what his sister must be going through at this moment. His sister. They did not know how much more she was to him – his counsellor and his helper, his mother and sister and lover all rolled into one, his comforter, his tower of strength. She was never frightened or weak; she was always strong and wise and invincible. The very idea of Morgan experiencing pain, perhaps even fear, was unbelievable.

'Arthur,' Bors said behind him. 'Don't ye worry. Van's been through four births and, I tell you –'

Arthur wished Bors would stop trying to comfort him. This birth was not a normal one – even he realised that, and only from listening to the screams of the birthing woman. Bors knew it, too, and his steadfast denial only made it worse.

'Arthur? Did ye hear me?'

'Arthur,' Dagonet said quietly. 'You need to sit down. You need to rest.'

'Maybe you should go outside,' Gareth added, his brow furrowed with worry, 'where you can't hear the – the sounds…'

'For once in your lives can you be _quiet_?' Arthur shouted. He threw himself down onto a chair and put his head on his arms.

The knights were all listening intently, fascinated and horrified and frightened. None of them was the baby's father – they could have left any time. But they hovered there in the meeting hall, their minds fixed on that awful, straw-strewn room up above. It was as if they could not tear themselves away.

'It's gone on for too long,' Gawain said in a whisper to Bedwyr, lowering his voice lest Arthur overhear.

Bedwyr nodded. He was controlled and cool-voiced as always, the well-known cynical expression on his face never wavering. A perfect mask. Bedwyr voiced what they were all thinking: 'This is bad.'

'Shut up!' Lancelot snapped at them. Already he was moving to Arthur's side, swift and reassuring. The boy sat down beside Arthur, not saying anything, his silent presence sympathetic.

_The blood-soaked straw is soft and sickly wet under the woman's knees. She lies in the arms of the midwives, her eyes closed, the long groans spilling out of her. Spilling, gushing, pouring forth like the crimson river running down her legs. The oldest midwife kneels in front of her, strong hands gripping the woman's thighs, pressing the thick towels against the flow. Towel after towel is soaked through and cast aside. The midwife's teeth are gritted in tense endurance._

'_A little more now,' the oldest midwife says, hoarse and unconvincing. 'Push – push. Just a little more.'_

_The younger midwives hold the woman's sweating body from behind, panting. The woman can hear their frightened thoughts, like a distant echo in her pain-racked mind: _It is not supposed to be like this.

_Even now her magic will not desert her. She is a thing of air, soaring high and weightless above them all, listening to the thoughts of a thousand tiny people. Her magic rips her from her body and carries her into nothingness. The other women's thoughts drum and dance in her head: _It is not supposed to be like this. Not like this, not like this, not like this.

'_Aaah,' she moans. Druid, priestess, sorceress, her great magical roles will not let her become a simple woman suffering in childbirth. The spells circle her like a dance of fairies. Will they help her or hurt her? She does not know._

'_Only a little more,' comes the faint voice of the midwife, as if from a great distance._

_The gasping screams are bursting from her own lips. The woman's head hangs down limply, her fire-eyes fading into dim shadow. It is not her really. It is only a poor tormented body – she seems to be looking down on herself from far above. She is whirling in the magical dance, the fates spinning dizzily before her eyes in her seeress vision. And then she sees her own fate._

_She comes back to herself with a shock. The blood soaks her, blood and death, fire and blood, she will not survive this childbirth, she knows now – or has she always known? Fire, red liquid fire flowing down her thighs onto the straw. She is not frightened; she has been taught not to fear death. But she shakes uncontrollably, and the strange mouth that is not hers cries out, 'Mordred, _Mordred_, my son –'_

_Mordred. The name rings and echoes in the woman's dizzied mind. She will not live to see her son. Why are they touching her, their rough hands gripping her agonised body? She struggles feebly, crazed and weirdly panicked. She cannot think. She screams again and again, trying weakly to fight away these women, unable to hear their urgent voices._

'_No! Don't touch me…DON'T TOUCH ME!'_

'_Lady Morgan, no –'_

'_Get your hands off me –!'_

'_Morgan, lady Morgan, listen to me…Hold still…HOLD STILL!'_

'_Get away!...DON'T TOUCH ME!...DON'T YOU TOUCH ME!'_

_Her shrieks seem to tear the world apart._

'_Anwyn, hold her!...Lady Morgan, you must keep still, do you hear me? Keep STILL…'_

'_DON'T TOUCH ME!'_

'_Lady MORGAN –!'_

Arthur sits, half-slumped, at the table, with Lancelot at his side…

_The woman is no longer thinking, no longer conscious. Her screams come unthinkingly, almost automatically. Her frail bleeding body writhes, the midwives' cries ringing unheard in her ears. Blood soaking into the straw, the scent of blood heavy in her nostrils, blood and death, fire and blood, blood and death…_

_Mordred, my son, Mordred. Fates spinning in her head. She is dying; she knows she is dying. Blood, her shrieks cutting the air, flowing gushing blood. Her screams are unconscious, tearing out of her of their own accord in a voice that is not her own. Fire and blood. The midwives are shouting at her – how is it that she can no longer hear their thoughts? – her screams growing louder, high and piercing, and then gradually fading away. Blending into air, into nothingness. Replaced by the wailing of the blood-drenched babe as it is drawn out of the woman's limp body._

_Her body lies in the midwives' arms. They are covered in blood, the baby and the midwives and the woman, blood running into the straw and over their exhausted bodies._

_Fire and blood._

_Blood and death._

* * *

It is sunset. The oldest midwife stands at the top of the stairs. The knights look at her expectantly.

The midwife is haggard, her eyes darkly circled from lack of sleep. The long hours of tension have taken their toll on her. She sags tired and wrinkled before them – she has taken off her bloodstained clothing and put on a fresh tunic, but it does not hide her utter fatigue. During the birth, she has been anxious and controlling. But now, with the stress over and her eyelids drooping wearily, she is barely interested any more.

Arthur looks at her, his face drawn and white. 'Well?'

The midwife's tired voice is cold, the words abrupt. 'The child will live. She is dead.'

There is a silence. The knights stare at the floor, at the table, anywhere. They do not really know what to think.

Arthur feels oddly detached, unable to feel any emotion. He is frozen inside.

He hears his own voice speaking calmly, the words forming neatly on his tongue and dropping off like pebbles.

'I am her brother.' Arthur is reluctant to say Morgan's name; it will turn this into reality, make it more than a strange nightmare. 'May I go up and see the body? And the infant?'

The midwife also sounds peculiar, as if she is playing a part in a not-very-good play. 'You may.'

He walks towards the staircase, his feet falling tidily on the stone tiles. A puppet on strings, an actor in a theatre. The midwife stands waiting for him.

'Arthur,' Lancelot says softly.

'I'll be just a minute.' His voice is flat and monotonous. He climbs the stairs, walks down the stone-floored corridor, follows the midwife into the birthing chamber. The knights are very quiet behind him.

The floor is covered with a thick carpet of straw. Arthur does not at first recognise the stuff as straw, so blood-soaked and filthy it is. One of the two younger midwives is busily clearing it away, pulling it into armsfuls and flinging it carelessly out of the window. The other bends over a basin of water, bathing something small and alive in it.

The body lies on a woven mat, naked and bloody. None of the three midwives pay any attention to it; they are too busy with the baby. Arthur walks over to the – the _thing_, his feet sinking into the dirty straw, and looks down.

The face of the woman is blank, the swollen eyes closed so that the lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. She is thin, her head dropping a little to one side, her breasts swollen with milk which will never be used, now. Her dark tangled hair is spread loosely around her. Dried blood streaks her legs, filthily.

All this Arthur takes in in an instant. He does not at first connect the thing with his sister, his beautiful sister Morgan. Then his mind gives a sort of _click _and he knows.

Once Morgan had been beautiful. Uriens had lusted after her and gotten a son on her. Arthur himself has spent nearly all his life in love with her. Now her body is stained and naked. No one has troubled to wash her corpse and dress it in fine clothing for burial. Now – she is _ugly_.

He hates himself for thinking that.

Arthur turns away from the corpse; he cannot bear to touch it. The young midwife has washed the babe and put it into a wooden cot which stands waiting. She takes his arm and brings him towards it.

'Your nephew,' the young woman says, her wan face smiling. She doesn't care if the mother lives or dies, as long as the baby is safe. 'Look at him, lord Arthur. A fine wee babe he is.'

Arthur looks down. The creature is asleep, its tiny face red and wrinkled as all newborn babies' are. He examines it, the little body wrapped in linen, trying to make himself care for it. But it is not a baby to him. It is a thing, an it. Morgan's voice rings in his ears: _Do not keep referring to the babe as 'it'. He is a person, he's a soul._

He – it – is a thing, to Arthur. Wrinkled, helpless, useless.

'A fine he-child,' the midwife says happily. 'D'ye want to touch him?'

_It will be a son. I can feel it._

Arthur shakes his head, his heart cold in his empty chest. 'What is its name?' he asks, knowing that he should say something. 'Did she tell you its name?'

The woman nods. 'Mordred.'

'Mordred,' he repeats.

_My son – _

No.

_My nephew._

He tries to smile, because the midwife is looking at him worriedly. 'A good babe indeed,' he says.

'Mordred,' she replies, beaming.

Arthur walks out of the room, out into the corridor. He leans his head against the wall and sinks down slowly, to the cold, cold floor. He grips the hem of his tunic in his hands. Grips it till the knuckles turn white.

Morgan is gone.

There is a strange live thing lying in the room where Morgan spent her last moments, and Morgan is gone.

And he hates himself. Hates himself, because, try as he may, he cannot weep for her.


	14. Centurion

_**Chapter 14 – Centurion.**_

_**455 A.D.; twelve years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

The Roman centurion had brought a map, though there were already several in Arthur's possession. He spread it out on the round table, running a finger across the table's curved rim.

'Good table, this,' he commented, tapping the polished surface. Almost perfunctorily he scanned the map, tracing their route across the rough parchment. 'You start from the Rock, just a few miles north of Hadrian's Wall. The Bishop's caravan should have arrived by the time you get there. Go by the main road where it's safer, then cut to this path here on the edge of the forest. It might be dangerous – send a scout ahead or something. Make it through the forest and it's all clear. Straight road to Londinium, no risk.'

Arthur leaned in closer to examine the map. He could not read, but he was so familiar with the geography of the place that he picked out landmarks easily. 'You must send a garrison to guard the Wall. While we're gone.'

The centurion looked at him quizzically. 'Why can't you just leave a few of your knights behind?'

'A few? The Wall goes on for miles!'

The Roman shrugged, his black eyebrows carelessly arched. 'The great Arthur and his knights should have no problem with that.'

Arthur had not noticed before how hard the centurion's eyes were. Like round pebbles, cold and polished in the eagle-like face. The centurion was watching him now, enjoying Arthur's dismay.

'Bishop Germanus is far more important. He must get to Londinium safely, and we're bound to meet a few Woad attacks along the way.'

_We're. _'You're coming with us?'

The Roman nodded. 'We'll go to the Rock, and once we take over, the previous escort will move on to Hadrian's Wall. _They'll _guard it for you. Sarmatians guard the Wall, not Romans.' He had tired of playing cat-and-mouse with Arthur's anxiety; already he was moving on to new games. 'And if the Woads somehow manage to take the Wall when you're gone, then it's your job to get it back afterwards.'

He spoke the words calmly, offhandedly. As always when he had dealings with Romans, Arthur realised afresh the huge gap between him and them. The centurion was speaking down to him, confident in his own full-Roman heritage. The knights were slaves, expendable, dispensable. If the Woads murdered them and captured Hadrian's Wall, why bother? Rome would simply send in more Sarmatians to patch things up. It did not matter what happened to them – no Roman lives were being spent on this, only Sarmatian ones. Sarmatians didn't count.

Galahad brought a tankard of wine and filled their goblets like a serving-boy. And indeed he was sometimes, as the youngest of the knights. Arthur drank, the warm sweetness pouring down into his cold stomach, and watched the centurion over the rim of his goblet with a kind of dread.

'Once you get Germanus to Londinium, circle the forest and come back. It will be a long journey, but it's safer than retracing your steps.' The Roman voice slid smoothly into Arthur's ears – cool, arrogant and dispassionate. Then it cut with sudden brutality. 'See any Woads, kill them on sight. If it's those savage women though, you might want to give them to your knights. As a kind of treat. Know what I mean? My men caught a Woad girl once, and they stuck their swords up her. She died very slowly.'

Arthur flinched at the thought, horror flashing across his face. The centurion smiled.

'It's no use being kind to them, boy,' he said. 'Makes people get suspicious. Have you forgotten which side you're on?'

Arthur stared down into his mug, feeling small and helpless. In Rome's eyes he was nothing, only the leader of a paltry bunch of Sarmatian slaves. No – he was even more lowly than the Sarmatians. He was one of the despised half-bloods, part Roman and part Briton, neither here nor there.

'It's bad blood from your mother,' remarked the centurion, thoroughly enjoying this conversation. He drained his goblet and filled it up again. 'She was a Woad, wasn't she?'

'She was a woman of the Tor druids,' Arthur said quietly.

The centurion made a dismissive gesture. The strong wine had begun to go to his head, and his speech was no longer quite so graphic in its imagery. It made it easier for Arthur to ignore him. 'Woads, Irishmen, druids, they all mean the same thing. Savages.'

Arthur smiled tightly.

'Your sister died last year,' said the Roman; it was good wine and made him disposed to be friendly. 'Didn't she? In childbirth.'

'Yes.' Arthur's voice was curt. He looked away, holding his goblet in stiff fingers.

'One of those pagan druids.' The centurion took another drink, refilling his goblet from the tankard on the table. Arthur had forgotten how many drinks he had had by now. 'No father, I suppose. Where'd you send the brat?'

The Roman was referring to the baby as a thing, a rather useless commodity. Somehow this helped Arthur to relax, and he found himself speaking of Morgan's son with the same cool detachment. 'I sent it to King Lot of Lothian. His late queen, Morgause, was my sister.'

'Lot of Lothian? He's no king, boy.' The centurion's eyebrows went up, indulgently amused. 'What have they been telling you? He's one of the British chiefs who made peace with us Romans, that is all.' _Us Romans_, Arthur thought bitterly, _not you-and-me us. I am not one of them, I am not one of anybody. _'But you'd have done better not to send it there. The tribes of Lothian are getting Romanised, and they have Roman social laws and all that. They won't be kind to a bastard child. _Nobody_ will be kind to a bastard child, when its mother is dead and its father unknown.'

The centurion's cool summing-up of the situation in those four short words – _mother, dead; father, unknown_ – made something snap inside Arthur. He slammed his goblet down on the table, his eyes dangerously narrowed. If one had looked into his face then, one might have seen a glimpse of the man he would become twelve years later.

'Listen, Roman.' The tension in the air became markedly more pronounced. 'I don't care a damn.'

'That's the spirit. Show some backbone,' chuckled the centurion, in high good humour, very drunk by now. He liked winding people up, though he liked it even more when they closed their eyes and suffered in silence. It was fun to see how his words hurt them. 'Touchy about your sister, aren't you…Who was she? One of the whore priestesses of Insula Avallonis?'

Arthur leaped to his feet. The centurion, delighted with the effect of his words, laughed triumphantly up into his face, and before that laughter Arthur could do nothing. He sank back down.

The brief hostility had cleared the centurion's head. Once again he was a Roman, grinning down at the lowly half-and-half commander of a slave cavalry. There were many worlds within this strange Britannia – the Woads of the forest, the Romans with their bishops and armies, the druids with their ancient magic. There were the little kingdoms like Lothian, ruled by peaceful Britons and filled with all sorts of people; they were comparatively happy most of the time. And then there were the Sarmatian knights. Led by half-Roman lowborns too despised for their lineage to do anything else. The unwanted, the outcasts, held in contempt by society and hated by their enemies.

The centurion stood up, swaying a little from the wine he had drunk. Arthur thought the man could drink more wine in a shorter time than anyone else he knew. Including Bors, which was saying a lot.

'I'll go and get things ready. We start in two days.' He made for the door – Arthur noticed he took the tankard of wine with him – and then turned back for a parting shot. 'Oh, and that boy of yours. What was his name – Tristan? Yes, Tristan. Good lad. Give him a pat on the back for me. Nothing like a good Sarmatian boy to liven things up when one's drunk.'

'What have you been doing to my knights?'

The centurion laughed, too loudly. 'Just one knight. I always pick the ones that don't talk much. Safer. And it's more fun too.'

Arthur's teeth were clenched so tightly they might have cracked. 'Get out of my hall.'

The centurion smiled, stumbling towards the door. Not all Romans were like him, really. Unfortunately most people didn't know that.

'My sister –'

The centurion paused at the door and looked back. Arthur was looking down at his hands, his voice very quiet.

'My sister used to talk to Woads,' he said softly. 'She was a druid. She said we should not hate anybody. She used to talk to them…She knew a lot of spells. Once she made Bedwyr's wound heal itself, when everyone thought he would die.'

It was the first time he had spoken of Morgan since her death.

'What in hell do I care?' demanded the centurion. 'Tell your stories to your own knights, you lowborn half-blood.'


	15. Beer

_**All right, this chapter doesn't really contribute to the plot, most of it is just useless banter between the knights. So if you're the kind of person who prefers plot-driven stuff with lots of action, by all means skip this! I just really like writing from Gaheris's POV – he's one of my favourite characters.**_

_**Admiral von Cha-Cha: Thanks for all your kind reviews! I'm afraid I haven't watched the film **_**Centurion**_**, but from what I've read it seems very promising. Particularly Etain, who's actually closer to my idea of what a Pict would look like than Keira Knightley's Guinevere.**_

_**Chapter 15 – Beer.**_

_**455 A.D.; twelve years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

'We're off early tomorrow morning.' Gaheris sat cross-legged on his stool, the knights gathered around him, clutching a beer mug as if it was a badge of authority. 'Everybody goes, except Galahad. And Gawain, since he seems to like babysitting ten-year-old boys –'

'Watch it,' Gawain snapped.

Gaheris rolled his eyes and took a swig of beer. 'And Bors is staying, too. I don't think Arthur trusts you within a ten-mile radius of the Bishop of Rome.'

Bors spat onto the tavern floor. 'Ah, well, that's good. I'll stay home in me own good bed and get drunk every day.'

'Ha! You wish.'

Gaheris felt good. The knights were all listening attentively – what was more, listening attentively to _him_. The three elder ones watched him, quiet for once; even Lancelot had stopped flirting with the barmaid on his lap, just for a minute, to listen to the briefing.

'And remember,' he continued, 'don't carry heavy weapons, they'll make too much noise. We want to get past the Woads without a fight. And on no account are you to – Lancelot, can you not do that in public? It's nauseating.'

'She likes it,' Lancelot responded, keeping his hand up the barmaid's skirt. 'Shut your trap, she likes me best anyway.'

'No, she doesn't,' said Gareth jealously.

'Yes she does. You like me best, don't you, Briallen?'

'Go to hell,' said Briallen.

Hoots of laughter. Gaheris sighed and rapped on the table for silence. He was, he reflected, probably the only one among the knights who could empathise with Arthur's frequent stress-driven breakdowns.

'Quiet. _Quiet!_ I'm trying to talk here.' He really shouldn't have chosen the tavern for this meeting, he thought. Philosophical/ mathematical equation #2076: Hormonal teenage knights plus barmaids plus liquor equals disaster. From a certain perspective. And Gareth was sulking over Briallen's choice of Lancelot instead of himself, and Galahad was sprawled fast asleep on the table (Tristan had made the mistake of giving him beer), and Lancelot was –

'Lancelot!'

Lancelot whipped his hand away with a guilty look. 'You're just jealous because you haven't got a girl.'

'I don't care, that's disgusting so stop it! Do you want me to make you go sit in the corner?'

The knights sniggered. Gaheris shifted uneasily, glaring at Vanora's other barmaids, who were smirking at his attempts to keep order. It's not easy being one of the oldest.

'And Bedwyr, please don't swear in front of the Bishop. Everybody must be very nice to Horton, remember he can't help being an idiot. And nobody, I repeat, _nobody_, is to talk about the lady Morgan. I don't think Christians like it when you talk about people like that.'

'People like what?' said Bedwyr sharply.

_Damn. _Gaheris bit his lip; Bedwyr was touchy about Morgan. 'You know. Witches, things like that –'

'Witches,' Bedwyr hissed. 'Did I hear you correctly?'

'Druids! Druids, I meant druids. Do Bishops like druids?'

'They like the pretty ones,' Lancelot offered helpfully. 'One time I saw Germanus and this –'

Flames of suspicion shot up in the hearts of the knights.

'Shut up, Lancelot!' said Gaheris in a panic, tightening his grip on the mug for support. There are some things people just don't want to know. 'There are children here.'

'Only one, and he's drunk.'

'No thanks to someone.' Gaheris glowered at Tristan, sitting very quietly on the end of the bench and enjoying the spectacle. Tristan rarely spoke, but he was capable of saying a great many things through his face and eyes. Right now his expression said: _I didn't know, did I?_

'You let a ten-year-old into a tavern, you bad influence! Gods, sometimes I think…'

'What do you mean by 'witches'?' demanded Bedwyr in a cold fury.

For once in his life Lancelot came to Tristan's defense. 'If a boy's old enough to fight, he's old enough to drink beer.'

'And if he drinks too much he will be able to do neither.'

Tristan: _That's what you think._

'He won't drink that much,' Lancelot said disdainfully, adjusting his hold on Briallen's waist with a stroking gesture that made Gaheris shudder. 'Look at him! Five mugs and he's out cold. What a weakling.'

Gawain's head came up. '_Watch it!_'

'What,' repeated Bedwyr slowly and dangerously, 'do you mean by _witches_?'

'Lance, take that back,' Gawain threatened. 'Take that back now or I'll –'

Gaheris's heart began pounding in his chest. In the growing confusion he tried to ignore the other issues on his hands, focussing on one at a time.'Tristan, you're not supposed to let children get drunk!'

Tristan: _Since when did I care about 'supposed'?_

Dagonet shifted a little closer to Bedwyr, with a reassuring glance, and Gaheris relaxed a little. A little.

'Galahad isn't a child,' Lancelot protested, 'not since I introduced him to the joys of tavern girls.'

'You WHAT!'

'Morgan was not a witch,' Bedwyr thundered. 'If I ever hear you talking about her like that again –'

Bors smacked him affectionately. 'Oh, shut it, we all know you were sweet on her.'

Bedwyr turned on him with a roar. Dagonet flung himself between them; Gareth sensed the danger and backed away in a hurry. All around them the chaos was building up. The barmaids scattered for cover.

'I was joking about the girls! Don't throw that at me, DON'T THROW IT!'

'_Do not insult Galahad in front of me!_'

'I won't take it back,' Bors teased, pitilessly, in the face of Bedwyr's wrath. ''Tis the truth!'

'Look to Bedwyr,' cried Gareth frantically. There was a moment when all the knights paused, just a moment – paused in their numerous individual quarrels to look, with growing alarm, on the more serious brawl looming on the horizon.

Bors was bigger and stronger, and usually would have won. But Bedwyr was more sober than him at present, and had the advantage of being madly furious. He lunged at Bors, toppling a bench; they struggled, thrashed angrily at each other, and went down on the floor with Bedwyr's hands stranglingly strong at Bors' throat.

In a flash Gaheris was on his feet. So was Dagonet.

'Gawain!' Gaheris hissed, launching himself at the wrestling pair. Gawain, startled, dropped his mug and darted into the fray, grabbing the collar of Bedwyr's tunic and twisting it to choke him. Gareth and Gaheris were at his side, pulling the raging Bedwyr off his victim amidst mingled shouts and pleas. Bedwyr was frighteningly angry, reluctant to relinquish his throttling grip on Bors' neck – it took the combined strength of all three to drag him back to his seat. Dagonet, meanwhile, had got a stranglehold on Bors' throat and was doggedly hauling him backwards.

At this new problem the knights forgot their smaller conflicts, allied themselves without a second's hesitation.

'Bedwyr, don't, Bedwyr!'

'Hold him, Dagonet!'

Desperately they wrestled, in a tangle of legs and strong restraining hands. The other knights propped their feet up on the table and watched in amusement. Such brawls were part of everyday life to them, and they left it to their more caring brothers to break things up. Gareth and Dagonet, the peacekeepers; Gaheris, the swift, authoritative older-brother figure; and Gawain, who was not above quarrelling himself but usually helped to maintain discipline. These four were the main reason the knights had not all killed each other years ago.

Bors and Bedwyr swore foully, both eager to continue the fight. Gawain and Gaheris kept Bedwyr from struggling by the simple solution of sitting on his head.

'Well!' said Gareth, immediately cheerful now that everything was under control. He began to hunt for a tankard of beer; the barmaids crept back cautiously, making sure the danger was past. You could never tell with these Sarmatians. 'How about you both have a good drink and cool off a bit.'

'I don't want a drink,' Bedwyr snarled, his voice muffled. 'Tell the little bastards to get off my face.'

'Not my problem,' retorted Gareth coolly, filling up the mugs. 'You just do as you're told and drink it up. Gaheris?'

Gaheris nodded to Gawain. They let Bedwyr up, watching him warily like nursemaids guarding a dangerous child. Which wasn't too far from the truth, as a matter of fact. Gareth passed round the mugs, the knights relaxed in their seats, Briallen returned to Lancelot's lap. Life was resuming normality.

'Gawain, your arse smells like cow dung.'

'I still say Briallen likes me best!'

'Tristan, d'you know your name means 'the noisy one' in Welsh?'

They were strange, the barmaids thought, these Sarmatians – switching from quarrelsome to cheery in an instant, quick to anger, quicker still to forgiveness. They might squabble fiercely one minute and be the best of friends the next. Even now Bedwyr and Bors were clanking mugs, calling for a toast.

Arthur came in just as they were having another round of drinking. It was a surprise; he seldom followed them to the tavern. He was no older than Dagonet, perhaps younger, but he looked old and tired. He sank wearily onto a stool and called for beer.

'Oh, Arthur! Didn't know you were here.'

'D'you want Briallen?' Lancelot inquired. 'You can have her on your lap for a while.'

'Lance, you're not supposed to pass girls around like that! You have to ask them first, politely.'

'Supposed again,' he complained. 'All these damned laws…Give me another mug.'

The easy chatter welled over them; different threads of conversation mixed and weaved together. Some of the knights had broken into a rowdy drinking song, their raucous voices echoing to the rafters. Arthur found himself relaxing. Sinking into the soothing, many-flavoured broth of his knights' company, all the little tiffs and jests of daily life.

'By the way, Arthur, do you know what Tristan did?' There was no frustration in Gaheris's voice now, only the airy sense of sharing a good joke.

'Gods,' groaned Lancelot. 'Not again…'

'Tristan! You can't give Galahad beer, he's too young!'

Half-laughing, half-scolding. It is nice to argue over small matters like this as if you haven't a care in the world.

'I don't know why, you just can't.'

'Tristan's name means 'noisy'? Gods, that's funny, I don't believe it –'

'My mother had high hopes for me when I was born.'

It's hard to tell who is saying what. Sink into happy oblivion, talking about trivial things.

'If Galahad grows up a drunkard I'll blame you, Tristan!'

'Let's sing it again. All together now…'

_**End note: And yes, according to some sources, 'Tristan' does mean 'noise' or 'tumult'. But I think other sources say it means 'sorrow', so – pick one! **_


	16. Bedwyr

_**Chapter 16 – Bedwyr.**_

_**455 A.D.; twelve years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

Slowly, steadily, the procession of horses moved down the road; the _clip-clop _of their hooves formed a gentle background to the carriage wheels' rattling. The riders didn't speak much, for they were tired. They had been travelling like this for close on three days.

Bedwyr had been given the job of riding beside the carriage, nearest the Bishop, so that he could protect their oh-so-holy charge every damned second of the day. He should have been flattered, the way Arthur worded it – making him Germanus's personal guard was a recognition of Bedwyr's superiority over the other knights. Not even Arthur's precious Lancelot had been offered that honour. _Honour. _Ha. Bedwyr spat on the ground, watched his horse tread the spit into the earth, and spat again. Nobody envied him his task.

Tristan rode on the other side of the carriage, another thing which Bedwyr should've taken as a compliment. The boy was good, undeniably good, rivalled only slightly by Lancelot. To publicly acknowledge that Bedwyr even came close to Tristan, to mark them out as Arthur's Two Best Knights – oh, sure, Bedwyr should have been dancing for joy. Pah. Four other perfectly good knights who would've made far better company for Bedwyr, and Arthur had to choose _Tristan_. Two weeks on the road, stuck between a creepy Christian bishop and an even creepier…living…thing. Two bloody weeks. Bedwyr groaned.

The knights had chatted at first, banter and jests (most of them very unfit for a Bishop's ears) swelling, breaking like tidal waves in a gale of laughter, then fading away as boredom and weariness overtook them. Riding along, listening to the endless monotonous sounds of travel, silently cursing this damned mission. Bedwyr knew it would get worse later as they drew near the Forest Perilous. Already the constant, tense alertness was playing havoc with his nerves. Rocked by the gentle swaying gait of the horse, the carriage rattling drearily on beside you, it was so easy to slip away. To drift into memories and daydreams, lost in your own past. To _think_.

Bedwyr did not like thinking.

More to avoid the flood of memories than because he really wanted to talk, Bedwyr called out, 'Arthur? Arthur.' His voice came out a croak from long disuse; he saw Arthur turn and ride back towards him.

'Arthur,' he said, lowering his voice. Now that he had spoken, Bedwyr felt himself escaping from the dreaded head-world, coming back into the anxieties and dangers of life. He was no longer a man, only a knight. 'The Woads are too quiet. I don't believe they'd let the Bishop of Rome pass without an attack. They're planning something.'

'I know!' Arthur snapped tersely. 'I can't do anything about it, can I?'

'Send Tristan to scout it out.'

'I already have. Three times.' Arthur scowled, stress twisting his eyebrows together.

'Well, do it again!'

They glared at each other, two frightened knights driven almost to a quarrel. And yet Bedwyr got the feeling that this was not real. They were arguing merely for the sake of arguing, to stop themselves from thinking too much. Arthur kicked his heels into his horse's flanks and sped away, leaving Bedwyr to do the dirty work for him. As usual.

The glowering Bedwyr saw Lancelot ride to meet Arthur; Lancelot, too, was worried at the Woads' unnatural silence. He saw Lancelot's concerned face, saw him put a reassuring arm over Arthur's shoulders. Low, soothing whispers in Arthur's ear, Gareth and Gaheris putting in an encouraging word or two. (Gareth, Gaheris and Gawain, closer than brothers, the Idiot Triplets. Optimistic fools.) Watched Lancelot and Arthur canter side by side back to the head of the procession, like brothers, like best friends, like –

Ah, Bedwyr. Let's not go there. Sarmatian knights have unbelievably filthy minds.

Bedwyr cursed at nothing, twitched his horse's reins and circled the carriage to meet Tristan. 'Tris – hey, Tris!' The boy rode on in silence, not hearing, keeping pace with the carriage. '_Hey!_ Pathetic life-form!'

Funny, he answered to _that_.

'Arthur wants you to go ahead. You know, make sure everything's clear.'

'If I remember correctly,' said Tristan coolly, not looking at him, 'it was you who mentioned it. Not Arthur.'

Bedwyr glared. 'You just have to overhear everything, don't you? Now _go_!'

Tristan smiled his faint, tolerant smile, his I-know-you-don't-hate-me-that-much-so-stop-pretending smile, and put his spurs to the horse. The horse broke into a trot, only too glad to break the monotony of walking, and the two vanished into the trees. Bedwyr watched them go, unable to keep a fond grin from spreading across his face.

But Tristan's departure signified jeopardy; the Woads' shadow hung over the weary travellers even when they weren't present. The secretary, Horton, peered fearfully from his seat, knowing that there must be danger ahead. Bedwyr sighed, rolled his eyes dramatically (not that anybody cared) and began counting down the seconds before Horton began his crying-and-mumbling routine.

The Bishop put a stop to Horton's pre-hysteria preparations by poking his head out. 'Is something wrong?'

Pointless question. These Romans were crazy.

Bedwyr stared at him contemptuously. _I just love my high and mighty Roman overlords, don't we all? Aw, I could just pinch his cute chubby little cheeks!_ 'Nothing,' he said sweetly. 'Nothing, ancient d – I mean, nothing. Just nothing.'

Germanus raised his eyebrows. 'Are you sure?'

Horton began to tremble and bite his nails, and Bedwyr kicked him under cover of the carriage roof. 'Why, everything's all right, great Majesty.' What are you supposed to call the Bishop of Rome, anyway? 'Of course, the Woads could launch a surprise attack and brutally kill everybody –' Here he kicked the shivering Horton a second time. '– but then, why bother? There's always the afterlife.'

Germanus opened his mouth to answer, but Bedwyr, smirking, turned and galloped off. Bedwyr: 10000. Bishop: 0. Nothing new there, of course.

Bedwyr hated Romans. Hated Roman bishops and their pious little Roman slaves, and hated the despicable Roman centurion who talked down to them as if they were filthy _dogs_. Hated the Roman women especially – snobbish, damnably beautiful women in expensive stolas. Women who turned away in disgust when the knights rode past, women who dusted their hands carefully after touching them, women who shuddered at the thought of magic-wielding druid priestesses like Morgan…

Morgan.

_His night-watch is over, and Galahad has just taken over from him; he is walking back to the sleep-room when he hears the soft _click_ of a lock. Startled, he turns to look._

_She is just letting herself out of Arthur's bedchamber._

_She sees him without looking, senses him with that peculiar druid spell of hers. Slowly she turns her head, her dark loosened hair falling softly over her bare shoulders. Her white sleeping-tunic, hastily girdled, glimmers in the faint moonlight. Their gazes lock._

_In that single glance, she guiltily caught in the act, he stock-still in that moment of revelation, a world of knowledge seems to pass between them. She knows he will not tell. She knows he never will – she knows everything. And then she flashes her swift mischievous smile, that glow of heart-wrenching sweetness, and runs down the corridor to her own chamber._

_He stands there, not moving, staring after her. He should be shocked. He should be horrified, should be condemning her in eloquent revulsion. But he isn't._

_He is _jealous_._

Bedwyr came to himself with a start. Suddenly he was aware of his blood pounding in his ears, Dagonet's puzzled, worried eyes on him. Dagonet the healer, the helper – Bedwyr wondered how he could endure riding with the Roman centurion who brought up the back of the line. If it had been Bedwyr, he would've drowned the bastard in the first convenient fish-pond they found. Bedwyr turned on Dagonet in silent fury, and the latter nodded without speaking and looked away.

Thinking. The worst part of travel, the boredom that made you slip into painful memories. He clenched his fingers on the reins, staring straight ahead. Must not slip again.

Must. Not. Slip. Must. Not. _Slip_ –

'_Teach me to shoot.'_

'_Why?'_

_She shrugs gracefully, her eyes alight with that special, quirky spark she saves for him alone. 'I'd like to learn to shoot.'_

'_And you actually think that's an answer?'_

_She smiles and pulls at the bow in his hands. 'Just do it.'_

_Ten minutes later she is laughing uncontrollably and he is beating his head against the wall, with Gawain and Gareth applauding from the stairs._

'_I didn't know! How was _I _supposed to know? You're the expert archer, not me!'_

'_I cannot believe you could be so incredibly _stupid_!'_

_She smacks his arm. 'It wasn't my fault. You should have told me that would happen!'_

'_Oh, gods,' he moans, and she cuffs him across the face._

'_That's for blasphemy,' she scolds._

_He looks at Gawain and Gawain looks back at him, and they roll their eyes in perfect unison._

'_Well, go on,' she says, taking the bow back. 'Tell me how to do it again.'_

'_No! Oh, on second thoughts, yes. The things you do are entertaining.'_

'_Shut up, shut up, shut up…'_

Bedwyr pulled back on the reins, and rode the horse in a circle twice before he realised what was happening. Horton looked at him suspiciously, and was rewarded with another kick. Where it hurt.

Lamorak; Morgan had liked Lamorak, Bedwyr had known things about Lamorak that no one else did. Sometimes Bedwyr thought he and the boy had had many things in common, except that Morgan had not been slain by her own sons as her sister Morgause had.

In a way it made things worse. Because there was nobody to take revenge on.

Bedwyr tightened his grip on the reins, his head spinning, Romans and Woads and white tunics in the light of the moon – behind him the centurion watched with hateful stony eyes, seeing and enjoying. And then suddenly there was a kind of vicious jerk, an abrupt dragging back into the world around him. For he heard the sharp _twang _and _zip_ of Tristan's bow, unexpected and alarming, and the steady pounding of horses' hooves changed to the sound of a gallop…

Lancelot's horse reared up, nearly throwing its rider, and he caught it and raced back along the line, pulling his two swords from the scabbards on his back.

'Woads!' Lancelot yelled.

The world exploded into fast-paced panic.

There was the high whinny of a frightened horse, the running of bare feet as the Woads swarmed over the carriage. Arthur and Gaheris were riding together into the midst of the onslaught, Lancelot just behind them, the hiss of arrows speeding overhead. Bedwyr dropped the reins of his horse, caught them again, swung round to face the attacking Woads. The clash of blade against blade, the shrill battle-cries of the Woads piercing his ears as he fought desperately, defending a Roman he hated – all around them the knights were rushing to protect the carriage. Hate the Bishop, despise the Bishop, curse the Bishop, yet when he was threatened all hastened to shelter him. The swift blue-painted bodies leaping over the carriage.

Bedwyr heard his own voice rising urgent over the noise of battle.

'Shields!'

Hurriedly surrounding the carriage lest the Woad arrows kill the Roman, this accursed Roman whom all hate and all fight for…Bedwyr's horse reared up, there was a terrifying tangle of hooves and flanks and tossing manes, the scream of a Woad trampled underfoot. Somewhere that damned centurion was fighting with his hated Roman sword. Tristan dropped his bow, snatched up his sword just in time and swooped down upon the Woads – then all was chaos and fear amid the cries of the attackers.

And then silence.

The unmistakable tumult of fighting had broken out without warning, as suddenly as a storm in a cloudless sky; now, equally abruptly, it stopped. Bedwyr froze, confused. The battle was over too soon – surely they could not have won so fast? A fight that ends too quickly is more of a shock then a fight that is lost. Battles must be fought out, completed, and a too-rapid victory is a gut-wrenching jolt to the fighters.

Bedwyr swung round, puzzled. The Woads lay dead at his feet. They had died too easily, too swiftly. He looked at his bloodstained sword disbelievingly. The other knights rode back and forth in confusion, surprise and bewilderment written on their faces.

Arthur leaped off his horse, rushed to the carriage and flung the door open. 'Yes,' Germanus called out, 'I'm all right, my dear fellow, my brave knight.' His voice was warm and grateful and insincere, accompanied with his typical humourless laugh.

Bedwyr thought he might throw up.

'It's a ploy,' Lancelot was saying in a low voice, looking at the blood-soaked corpses on the grass. 'A trick. They want to make us think the conflict is over, and later on they'll attack again.' A murmur without words, without sound, ran through the knights, passing itself through flickering eyes and nervous fidgets. _A battle is coming_, it whispered.

Horton began to shake, and for once Bedwyr did not kick him.

Dagonet stared at the slaughtered Woads, his eyes full of shock instead of the uneasy dread that was on the other knights' faces. He was the only one who saw the lives that had been sacrificed for this, instead of the foreshadowing that this meant. He looked up and met Bedwyr's eyes and his gaze said, _They let their own men die, fathers and brothers and sons and husbands, for a _ploy_?_

Bedwyr: _That's how they work, get used to it._

Damned Romans. One or two or more of the knights might be killed for their sake, and nobody would ever thank them. Savagely Bedwyr jerked the reins, his horse trampling the blood of battle into the ground. 'Moving on!' he snapped at his stunned comrades, and was surprised at how careless his voice sounded.

_I've had practice at this kind of thing._

Germanus leaned out of the carriage window, bright cheerful Roman eyes sweeping over the dead Woads. The centurion smiled quietly, cleaned his sword on the grass and rode forward. The procession was starting to move again.

_She mounts, sitting astride like a man, her long skirts falling down over the horse. He steps back, then rushes forward suddenly and catches her hands as they reach for the reins._

'_You'll bless me?'_

_She looks down at him with tired unsurprised eyes. 'A knight does not need the blessing of druids,' she says drily. 'The only magic he needs is his sword.'_

'_I said, will you bless me?'_

_She hesitates, her fingers still within his own. Then swiftly she takes his face in her hands, leaning down from her horse._

'_The favour of all the gods be with thee,' she says, saying the ancient words spoken by a thousand generations before her. She traces the sacred symbols of her faith in the air above his head. 'May the gods watch over thee when you sleep and when you are awake, and may their love go with thee always.'_

_And then she suddenly pulls away, as if frightened. Without speaking, without looking at him, she yanks on the reins and the horse gallops away, her Roman-style cloak billowing out behind her._

_He stands and watches her go._

The procession moved in grim silence, rattling wheels and gentle taps of hooves. Germanus leaned out of the carriage, reached out to Bedwyr's horse and passed his hand lightly over the rump.

'Well, well,' he said in his oily, over-friendly voice. 'Thank God nobody was hurt. What a fine horse you have, my good knight! Let me see…'

'You bastard,' said Bedwyr. 'Get your filthy Roman hands off my horse.'


	17. Tristan

_**Admiral von Cha-Cha: Oh drat! *beats head against wall* Anachronisms, anachronisms! Ah well…I've tried to fix some of the language issues now. About the childhood thing, I'm not really sure (I didn't see that part in the movie) but after more than ten years, one does tend to look back on the past in a different way.**_

_**WARNING: Violence. Since this **_**is **_**Tristan, after all…**_

_**Chapter 17 – Tristan.**_

_**455 A.D.; twelve years before the battle of Badon Hill.**_

At dawn the forest was still, that deadly, shadow-dark streak against the green fields of Britannia. The birds slept, the animals slept, the people slept. In a few minutes they would wake and the birds would begin their morning chorus, but now they were silent. The little group of knights who guarded the Bishop of Rome – they too slept, rolled in sleeping bags around a dying camp-fire. In a little clearing not far into the forest a man was beating a boy.

_The boy slips across the hall, thin, fleeting, a silent shadow among shadows. But not silent enough. The heavy door creaks as he slides away, and Arthur looks up sharply._

_His voice is hard with suspicion: 'What happened to your face?'_

_Tristan looks back at him, steadily._

'_I fell.'_

The boy tried to roll away, weakly dragging himself into a crawl. The man overtook him in a few careless strides, smiling. Picked him up and hit him across the temple, a heavy cruel blow that made his ears ring and his head scream with agony. Once the boy had hit a child like this, on his first day in Britannia. What had the child's name been? Gal – Cala…

He couldn't remember.

_The centurion looks them over, bright cruel eyes like oil-shined marble. He wants a victim, to taunt, to torture, to wound. He is strong and powerfully built, his muscles steel in his battle-scarred body, and he knows he can hurt people. He likes to hurt people. It makes things entertaining._

_He surveys the knights in a single glance, a cool, practised glance that pierces their souls. He's good at studying people. There've been many sources of entertainment before this._

_He looks at one of the knights, the thin shadow, the quiet one. You can't give things away if you don't talk. The centurion sits up straighter, suddenly alert, like a hawk that has spotted its prey._

_Dagonet does not usually display affection. But abruptly he stands, drawing startled glances from the other knights. Casually, as if just stretching his legs, he walks over to the shadow boy's chair and stands behind it. He does not look at the boy, much less speak to him. He simply stands there, solid and alert. Staring straight into the centurion's predator eyes. _

_In that single casual gesture, which means nothing except to the three of them, he has shown far more protectiveness to the boy than he ever will again._

_The centurion smiles._

The man's horse was tied to a nearby tree, calmly grazing. The grass was cool and dewy wet against the boy's bloody face. The man kicked him, heavy boot crashing into his ribcage with a force that took the breath out of him. He _would not _scream. The boy reached for the man's sword, hanging in its scabbard at the steel-boned hip, but the man was too fast for him. The ground dropped from below him, then came rushing up with horrible swiftness.

Close your eyes. This is not happening to you. You are looking down on another man beating another boy, you don't know the boy, you are not the boy. Ah, look. That must have hurt. How interesting.

_Gareth's hand is tight on his arm, his concerned face pushing close. Too close. 'Are you sure you're all right?'_

_He doesn't answer. It would scare them if he answered, because he _never _answers questions. Never._

_He keeps walking. Gaheris overtakes him first; his legs are longer than Gareth's. 'You're sure?'_

_Silence._

'_I don't believe you…'_

_He looks away. Keep walking._

'_Swear it. Tristan.'_

_Silence._

'_Swear to me you're all right and I'll believe you.'_

_Silence._

Sweat shining on the man's face, his teeth white against the sun-browned skin. A soft, unheard neigh from his horse. The man was enjoying this. He was good at hurting people – very useful talent, y'know, here in Britannia.

The boy saw the next kick coming, caught the rising foot and tried to jerk it back on itself. He wasn't strong enough; the man wrenched his leg away and smashed it into the boy's body. The beating got worse after that.

Slowly, very slowly, blood began to mix with the dew-drops on the grass.

That's what you get for defending yourself.

_Bedwyr's hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his tunic, his steps brisk and business-like. 'But don't worry. He won't give you any serious injuries,' he says coolly. He does not sound concerned, as the other knights do – but then, Bedwyr never sounds concerned. 'Like break your sword arm. It's very inconvenient if the Woads kill you along the way. Inconvenient for him, of course.'_

'_I don't know what you're –'_

'_Ha, it speaks! A miracle.'_

Ah, thrown against a tree. Ouch. Remember, you don't know the boy and you don't know the man. Remember. It is someone else.

Voices in memory, echoes of a long-ago comrade's worried call.

'_Tristan…?'_

Who's Tristan?

The man was getting tired. He lifted the boy, almost fondly, dangling him at arm's length. His marble eyes glittering in the light of the rising sun, mad eyes, stone-carved eyes. The birds began to sing.

_Lancelot: 'Lock the door when you go to bed.'_

_Bors: 'I'm just saying, lad…'_

_Dagonet: 'I'm taking over your watch tonight. Actually, I'll be taking all your night-watches for the next few days.'_

_Gawain: 'Leave him alone. It's no use anyway…Gareth, don't give me that look!'_

_Galahad: 'Will you teach me how to use a crossbow, Tristan? Please? You _will_ teach me…Won't you?'_

Ha.

A punch to the jaw, so sudden, didn't see it coming. Felt himself dropped jarringly. Any broken teeth? No…Cold grass, hot blood, how was it he could only think in short bursts? The boy crouched close to the ground, covering his head, waiting for the next blow to fall.

'Scared?' said the man, insanely grinning. 'Ah, well…'

He did scream this time.

_The quick, horrified flash in Vanora's eyes as she sees him come into the tavern. She doesn't say anything. But as she comes to the table with their drinks she pushes Bors' hand away, does not even bother to look at Lancelot. Instead she sets down the mugs, pulls out a stool for herself and sits down beside him. She is holding something in her hand, and he sees what it is – a bowl of cool water, clean cloths, and bandages._

_He pulls away from her._

'I like Sarmatians.' The man is not even breathing hard, smiling all over his strong tanned face. 'It's one of the advantages of being a centurion…'

Centurion.

There was a kind of mental snap, jerking back into reality. Remembering – boy, man, centurion, Sarmatian. He gasped for breath, clutching the grass blades for just an instant before he crouched again. Crouched in a different way, tense and defiant.

The centurion saw the change and laughed out loud. He would take care of _that_, he thought.

Not a chance.

The centurion had sealed his own fate with that single word. That short, slight pull back into consciousness. Tristan waited, at last alert, crouching thin and small and determined. Aware now of what was happening and who it was happening to. Aware that in just a few short moments this Roman would be dead.

The Roman saw him tense again, like a panther about to spring. And he laughed.

The next blow never found its target. There was a movement, so fast the centurion never saw it coming, a lightning-swift spring and a brief, quickly ended struggle and the scrape of metal against metal and the centurion screamed –

The horse neighed in terror, snapped the rope that bound it to the tree and galloped off into the forest. Tristan did not look up. He stood gazing down at the centurion, slain with his own sword, which now swung gleaming and blood-soaked in Tristan's hand. He had cut the Roman's head off.

It was a good kill, clean and neat, no blood on his clothing. Tristan smiled.

He heard the crash of the horse's hooves among the trees, then the sound of someone struggling with the reins and a familiar voice saying, 'Whoa, hush. There…It's all right. Shhh, it's all right.'

Bedwyr walked into the clearing, leading the centurion's horse by the reins.

He took in the situation in an instant – this thin dark-shadowed boy standing, bruised and bloody, over the Roman's corpse with a sword in his hand. Tristan heard him take in his breath sharply.

'The gods help us,' Bedwyr whispered. 'What have you done?'

Tristan looked at him and said nothing.

Swiftly Bedwyr snapped into action. He was the oldest of the knights, next to Bors; at all costs he must cover up for Tristan. Protect him from the consequences. He tied the horse up and stared at the ground, thinking hurriedly.

'All right,' he said briskly, glancing around to make sure no one else was there. 'We're going to make it look like a Woad attack. Put the sword by his hand. No, not _in_ it, just next to it. There.'

Quick silent boy moving over the grass, a noiseless shadow.

'Scuffle up the ground. Like a fight.' Bedwyr had his bow with him; he slipped an arrow onto the string and shot it into a nearby tree. Took another arrow and did it again. 'We've got to fake this as best as we can.' Again he glanced round nervously. Tristan obeyed his instructions, kicking up dirt and yanking grass blades out by the handful. There wasn't much to do – there were several signs left over, from what the centurion had done to him. Grimly he bared his teeth.

'You've got blood on your hands. Wash them in the stream, over there.'

Tristan obliged. The head lay several feet away from the body, the face frozen forever in pain and shock. He liked it.

'Now,' said Bedwyr, putting his bow into Tristan's hands. 'Take my bow and shoot the horse.'

Tristan stared at him.

'Hurry!' Bedwyr urged, looking round uneasily. 'If someone comes round and sees…'

The horse, graceful and exquisite, pawed the ground delicately – beautiful supple creature. Tristan clenched his teeth. 'No.'

'It has to look like a Woad attack! _Do it!_'

'It's a _horse_ –'

Bedwyr hit him, so hard Tristan stumbled and nearly fell. 'You _bastard_!' Bedwyr shouted. 'Do you realise what you've done? Don't you know what will happen if they find out it was you?'

Tristan got up, very slowly. Notched the arrow on the bowstring and took aim. Bedwyr closed his eyes and waited.

The horse lifted its gentle beautiful head and looked at Tristan for a moment. Then, letting out a soft whinny, it bent its head and began to nibble at the grass.

Tristan put down the bow. Bedwyr cursed, snatched the bow from him and shot the horse himself.

The horse swayed, its dying neigh cutting the morning air. Bedwyr cut the reins, and it toppled to the ground and lay still.

'Good,' said Bedwyr, panting. Tristan would not look at him. 'Now we're done. Now you're safe.'

Tristan stared silently at the ground, and abruptly Bedwyr was enraged. He struck Tristan again, even harder than the first time, where the Roman centurion had hit him so many times before. Caught Tristan before he fell and shook him violently by the shoulders.

'You don't ever kill Romans again! _You understand?_'

Tristan met his gaze for a moment, looking at Bedwyr with dark penetrating all-seeing eyes. Then quietly he turned away and walked off through the forest, heading for the camp.

Bedwyr let out his breath, suddenly exhausted. It was no use hiding from Tristan. Tristan knew. Tristan had always known.

He stretched his aching body, felt the whip scars across his back, the old bruises on his shoulders and jaw. Felt the old, barely healed wounds where many years ago the centurion had beaten _him_.

Five years. Five years' worth of abuse. Later, luckily for Bedwyr, the Roman had chosen a new victim.

Not so luckily for the Roman though.

Bedwyr closed his eyes, shaking. And at last, he let himself say the words he had not dared to say before Tristan:

'Bloody son of a bitch deserved all he got.'

He kicked the head into the stream. It bobbed down in the current, staining the clear water with blood, until there was nothing in the clearing but a headless Roman slain by Woads.


End file.
